I've written before about my grandmother, Emilia, travelling from the mountains of Italy to Philadelphia with no more than a 4th grade education (or was it 2nd grade? NOW who's uneducated?). She often regaled me with the tale of the 2 week trip via oceanliner from the only place she'd ever called home to this scary, new world.

She built a life in the city of Chicago, working in sweatshops and factories, her husband, Antonio eventually becoming an activist/union organizer. They birthed 2 children, bought a huge house on the city's south side, and eventually both retired, my grandfather passing about 6 months after my birth.

Emilia turns 97 next week.

Holy. Crap.

Her health has been in steady decline for some time now, and I received a call last Thursday that my planned trip to Vegas to visit her Saturday might be "too late". So I pushed the trip to Friday and got there as soon as I possibly could.

My grandmother has worn a "tough bitch" persona her entire life: No one was ever gonna screw her over. I suppose it began as a child but was heavily re-enforced coming to America, not knowing the language, not knowing how the system worked, unsure of her fate. But this demeanor didn't make her a cold, uncaring person, don't get me wrong. I spent a LOT of time with her as a child, and never once do I recollect a raising her hand to me or yelling at me...for any good reason, at any rate. Her day-to-day volume hardly matched her tiny, less-than-5-foot frame.

But sitting beside her bed on Friday, talking with her for nearly 4 hours, her weak body no match for her still sharp mind, I saw something I'd yet to see in 36 years: EMILIA.

She'd dropped the tough bitch act. In it's place, her true, beautiful self emerged. I asked her a barrage of questions, mostly about stories I'd heard time and again about her past, but intertwined in those were colorful, gorgeous images and, often, hilarious stories I'd never before heard.

Emilia lay on her back, my hands stroking her face, as she again recounted the 2 week, ocean liner trip to America; a story I myself could tell with a marching band blaring in my ears, for the number of times I've heard it. But a fresh question dawned on me as she spun the tale once again:

"How did you feel, as the boat pulled away, and you left Italy?"

She heaved a heavy sigh. A smile curled up her mouth as she stared somewhere beyond me:

"Oooh! So excited to go...so sad to leave."