The Importance of Family

It’s been a tumultuous few months. The welcome yet early arrival (four weeks premature) of our second grandchild, Arthur, on Boxing Day 2024, was a heart-palpitating event. Thankfully, all went well and now at three months old (photo), as this little munchkin becomes more aware of his surroundings, I often take out a moment or two to smile at the wonder of creation and, of course, the importance of family.

How blessed am I to have two little humans—grandchildren, Florence and Arthur—that carry forward my genes and behavioural traits into the future? It’s more than the importance of family though, it is the joy that they bring into my life with their wide-eyed wonder and a fresh perspective on things. For me, personally, it also calls to mind forgotten youthful memories. Thankfully, I am one of the blessed ones having had a loving childhood and I feel that my husband and I have passed on that nurturing environment onto our two girls.

The importance of family cannot be underestimated though, and it has stood firm in recent months. From a joyful experience in December to a stressful one just recently with Tropical Cyclone Alfred as it battered the east coast of Australia. Living in the Gold Coast hinterland, we thought we were as prepared as we could be. However, the nights of bombarding wind and drumming rain seemed to gallop in time to my thundering heart. I don’t do well in high-wind situations in the dark when, with a vivid imagination, I can see the roof of my house being ripped off and can even hear the sounds as it happens … even when, thankfully, it didn’t! Dramatic, I know!

Grandchildren add a richness to life: Florence (left) and Arthur (right).

Phone calls from my daughter and son-in-law and our other daughter in Germany, over this tense period, just brought home, once again, the importance of family. I could feel their love and concern over the (phone) line, and ultimately, in the end, that is what really matters. Houses, cars, nice things … they are all possessions that can give us that temporary rush, but the love and support from family and friends are something to cherish; that caring emotion lives in our hearts and minds.

Below is an excerpt from Goodbye to Italia. As a little girl, my mother would have had no comprehension of the broader aspect of things as in WW2, every day that one lived to see another night was the roll of the dice. The scene below is in 1940, in Torino, Northern Italy. My mum is six-years old and, along with her mother and grandmother, they have to go to a bomb shelter.  #family #grandchildren #italy #WW2

I don’t want to go out. It has started to rain, and we didn’t have much to eat again. But Nonna says, ‘This is what happens when you live in a war-torn country.’ Whenever we cannot find something to eat or when I don’t want to do something, Nonna is quick to remind me of her favourite saying.

Mamma holds my hand tightly as we go down the stairs onto the road to make our way to something that is called a bunker. ‘It is a place for us to be safe … from the bombs,’ Nonna explains to me when I ask why we have to go out. I imagine that we are playing hide and seek when we go to the bunker. We are hiding from the bombs that make everything shake and make Nonna pucker up her lips. There are many people hurrying about in the street. But they are shadowy dark figures as none of the street lights are switched on. Like us, they walk quickly and quietly. If someone were to stop us, they would see a waif-like child flanked on either side by her protectors—Mamma and Nonna.

Nonna is the youngest of seven children, but she is the only one to have had a child and then a granddaughter. Nonna’s sisters, Michela and Annetta, are her only living relatives now. Annetta lives in another part of Italy and rarely comes to visit. But Michela, my aunt, whom I call Zia Michela, is going to move in with us over the weekend as she doesn’t like all this talk of bombings. She is taller than Nonna and doesn’t say much. I don’t mind though, as she is always nice to me.