Handing me a pamphlet on grief, the woman asked if I had a name picked out for her. I stared down at the geometric patterns on my olive green hospital gown and seethed internally. What a silly question.
“No,” I lied.
The question forced me to think of the 13 week old fetus who was about to be removed from me as a daughter. But I already did think of her as a daughter; only, that felt like top secret information, too private to share with this well intentioned but fumbling hospital functionary.
Nonetheless, as they wheeled me off to the operating room, to myself, I whispered Anna.
Anna was the name of my great-grandmother, who was born in Italy right before the turn of the century. In 1902, when she was three years old, she moved with her parents to the U.S., passing through Ellis Island. At first, the family went to Colorado, settling in a mining town called Silver Plume, which, coincidentally, I pass through on my annual ski trips. At some point, they settled in Iowa, in another mining town, and opened up a grocery store.
Her silvery hair was always spun up into an Old-World bun, but once, when I glanced in her bedroom, she was sitting at her vanity, combing her hair out, which seemed like a haunting.
I don’t know much about my great-grandmother’s upbringing, but when she was about 20 years old, she met and married her husband, Daniel, who was from Zagreb, Croatia. He worked in the mines and was active in the labor union. They were strong Democrats and had three children, my grandmother Mary being the eldest. Eventually, they moved to a farm with a white farmhouse and enough land to live off of. My mother loved the summers she spent there with her immigrant grandparents. My mother was the second generation born in America, the one typically interested in exploring the family’s roots (with the first generation more focused on integrating into American society).
One major tragedy occurred in Anna’s family. My great-uncle Paul, who was also the first in the family to go to college and then law school, was drafted during the Second World War and became a pilot. He was piloting a plane headed for Dakar, Senegal, but it went down somewhere in the South Atlantic. They never found his remains, but he went missing on February 14th, 1944. My mother was one at the time, so she never knew her uncle, but grew up hearing about him. I have a huge binder filled with the frequent letters he wrote, from his time in law school and military training, and even one written a few days before his fatal mission, which he signed off with “Don’t worry about me.”
I’m not sure how my great-grandmother shouldered this tremendous loss, but she was known in the family for her quiet strength. I remember her tiny frame and erect posture, her soft brown eyes magnified by her thick lensed glasses. Her silvery hair was always spun up into an Old-World bun, but once, when I glanced in her bedroom, she was sitting at her vanity, combing her hair out, which seemed like a haunting. When my mother and I visited her, she treated us to Hardee’s because it was one of the few restaurants in her small town. Had I known better, I would have recognized her Sunday lunches as the real treat, when she’d make risotto or rigatoni.
I was 12 when Anna passed away, and it was the first time that I ever heard my mother wail. This was also the first time that I recognized vulnerability as the source of real intimacy. My brother’s friend David, on whom I had a crush, was over at our house when we got the call. Hearing my mother made me feel simultaneously embarrassed and scared, so I went out onto the porch. David followed. I’m not sure where my brother was, so it was just me and David, looking at each other, not knowing what to say, but I remember that he blushed the color of his bright red hair. We were privy to something neither of us yet understood — loss — and the way that it can split open your heart, similar but different to the way falling in love can. Years later, I recognized this in a heart meme that a friend posted on Facebook, which said: I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
I was 12 when Anna passed away, and it was the first time that I ever heard my mother wail.
Years later, in the few days that passed between finding out I was pregnant and then learning that the fetus had trisomy 13, a rare and debilitating condition that would necessitate termination, I decided to name the child Anna, to honor my great-grandmother. This all occurred during the first Trump presidency, when like many Americans, I was contemplating moving abroad. Maybe it’s time to move back to Italy, I had mused. If Anna had made us all Americans, maybe she could help remake us into Italians?
I never acted on this impulse, and now, it is too late, at least for the moment, since Italy last spring changed its citizenship laws, making it necessary to have either a parent or grandparent born in Italy in order to obtain citizenship. I know a few Americans who still qualify and are seeking it — in part, to escape the second Trump presidency. Coincidentally, this summer while I was in Italy, someone on a Facebook group I joined for people with ancestry from Anna’s hometown in Northern Italy sent me a copy of her birth record. While it probably won’t help me get citizenship, it’s a nice relic to have, along with Anna’s slate blue house dress that hangs in my closet. It’s too tiny for me to squeeze into, but it reminds me of her big spirit.
