Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day today in the states, but here in Italy it is just a normal Monday, except not really because, well, things haven’t been normal for a while with the pandemic and all. In pre-covid years, even though Memorial Day has never been an Italian holiday, it has always been recognized by official ceremonies held at the Florence American Cemetery where Americans and Italians gather together in honor of the 4,399 American military buried there and the plaque commemorating another 1,409 who went missing during WWII, fighting for our liberty and freedom.  This year, with the cemetery closed due to the coronavirus, we are left to creating our own personal remembrance ceremonies to honor those of the Greatest Generation who fought not for fame or fortune but because it was the “right thing to do.”

So today, my ceremony will be held here in the form of a story that revolves around one of those ceremonies held at the Florence American Cemetery and an Italian woman named Miriam who knows how to weave memories into poetry and prose.

Miriam, these days, says she’s turning into a “question mark” because of her scoliosis and because when you’re in your 90s gravity has done its thing for while, especially if you’re not that tall to start with.  Over the years of knowing her I’ve found what she lacks in height she makes up for in grinta and grace.  We met by chance in 2008 when I found her sitting at a table at the butcher, Dario’s, new restaurant, a table that I’d understood was one reserved for a Poet’s tour group of 42 we’d brought that night. “Buonasera,” she quipped as I brought part of the group to sit down, “Sono Miriam, mi ha invitato Dario. Sono un poeta anch’io. Pero non parlo inglese.” And with that I’d learned that Miriam was here because Dario had invited her, that she was a poet and… that the evening of good food laced with casual conversation with compatriots would now be an evening of translated word volleys because … she didn’t speak English.

Before any of the myriad of meat dishes had arrived at our table of 5, Miriam had asked if she might read to us some of her poems.  She had hoped this group would be an easy audience. After all, hadn’t they come to Tuscany from the states for a week of poetry and inspiration?  As we made our way through a few courses and she made her way through a few poems, she and I fell into a symbiotic rhythm of her Italian recitation and my English translation. There was the ode to her beloved Florence, where she was born and raised; the one about the precious gift of childhood friendship; and the one about “mad cow disease” after which I had to explain to my table-mates how Dario had staged a formal funeral for the coveted Bistecca Fiorentina (T-bone steak) when concern over mad cow disease made selling meat on the bone illegal for a number of years.

Miriam went on…“And this is the poem I wrote when they asked me to speak at the Memorial Day ceremony at the Florence American Cemetery commemorating the 60th anniversary of VE Day, which marked the end of Nazi rule and WWII in Europe.”  She then read a poem that addressed the thousands of white crosses that dot the green expanse of the cemetery, asking them to forgive her for not having come sooner to visit, even though all these years she’d know that her freedom in life had come at a cost, one that they had paid for with their lives.  It spoke of the joy she felt when at 16 years old she had welcomed her liberators, and learned that freedom tasted of sweet chocolate and white bread.  In the poem she promised that these memories were as vivid as ever despite the passage of time and that her beating heart offered itself in eternal gratitude to the thousands that had ceased to beat in their valiant efforts to secure freedom for others. Thank you, the poem says… and never goodbye.

At this point all of us at the table had stopped eating and were using our napkins to dry our tears.  I asked Miriam if it would be ok to read this to the entire group.  Just as the meal was finishing up we stood where everyone could hear and by the time we had finished reciting the poem together, the whole group of 42 was crying into their dessert plates.

Before leaving the restaurant, the youngest of the group who was 27 years old told me he had to speak to Miriam and could I translate?  He then stood in front of her and took her small, frail hands in his, looked straight into her eyes and said,

“I need to thank you for reminding that my country once stood for something great.”

Here was someone who had grown up with the vestiges of the war in Vietnam, the Gulf war, Afghanistan, Iraq, wars that could be considered questionable, that did not hold the same black and white element that clearly existed during WWII, where so many took up the cause and fought with honor because it was the “right thing to do.” 

Miriam reminded him - and us - that we come from that Greatest Generation, even if today we wonder what has happened to the values of honor and dignity.

Maybe that’s what Memorial Day is for:  

Remembering those values of honor and dignity, and to act not for the gain of fame and fortune, but for liberty and justice for all.

Because it’s the “right thing to do.”

For Miriam’s books in italian, please see http://www.toscanalibri.it/it/autore/miriam-serni-casalini_693.html