04/11/2025
After 4 1/2 years, we became Italian citizens today. The process started back in Denver in 2021 in our beloved house on Magnolia which we sold to help fund our dreams of a life in Europe - away from a city that was ‘home’ housing so many different chapters of life full of moments, memories, family, and friends - so much love - into the unknown of something different and new.
I wore my Italy World Cup jersey from 1986 - my first visit to Europe. A whirlwind family vacation in less than three weeks starting in London through France and Italy to Yugoslavia and into Austria and Germany. Cafes were bustling, every city and village was full of life, history, and personality, and it seemed like everywhere my head turned sparked my imagination. The Berlin Wall wouldn’t come down for three more years, but any walls that existed inside my naïve 17 years came crashing down and - whether I knew it or not at the time - the seeds were planted and the world became a little bigger and even more beautiful and mysterious. So much to see, feel, learn, and experience.
Today was a small but very significant part of it all and more than worthy of celebration. But this part of the dream won’t truly feel complete until I see my oldest son , my sister , and my 89 year-old dad holding up their Italian passports too in front of the Italian Consulate in Chicago.
But, to think it all started as simply an idea back in Denver where my wife and I said, as we’ve said so many other times before and since, “Let’s do it!” So we did it. And today, our youngest son and I gathered all the necessary documents, walked out our front door to the Italian Consulate right here in Nice to become Italian and EU Citizens! Life is pretty crazy in that way, I guess.
There is a Buddhist meditation where we honor our ancestors by sitting quietly and visualizing all of the ones who came before us - parents, grandparents, and beyond - and express our gratitude and thank them … “I am here because of you. Thank you.”
I guess this is - as Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries so wistfully sang it - an “Ode To My Family” and part of that ongoing ‘meditation’.
🙏❤️
