Where It Hurts

From my earliest memories there were two houses, the little frame house where I lived with my parents and little brother, and my grandmother’s house where we spent most of our time.

My mother was devoted to her mother. My parents had been married in the living room of my grandmother’s house and they lived there with my grandmother and her three nieces until I was over a year old.

Many times I heard my grandmother tell about the time I stood up in my crib and cried. When my mother went to comfort me, I said, “I don’t want my Mamie, I want my Nonna.” After that my grandmother was always called, “Nonna.”

I was an adult before I realized what the baby was trying to say. My grandmother called my mother “Mary,” and she called her mother, “Mama.” Just learning to talk, I could not pronounce the words I heard them call each other, so I said, “Mamie” and “Nonna.” In any case, it was my infant’s rejection of my mother.

Why did I do that? I don’t know. My grandmother loved to repeat the story. She was a woman who desperately wanted to be loved and needed. No one ever suggested that telling that story would be hurtful to my mother. I doubt that Nonna ever realized that in telling it she was being cruel.

How many times we do things and say things without realizing that we hurt other people. If I have done that to you, please accept my apologies and regrets.