“Want to move to Italy?” We had been married for 4 years with two children already, and just found out we had a third one on the way. I married an engineer who had a reliable job at Texas Instruments in Dallas. I did not see this coming, but it was the water my soul needed. Without hesitation, I answered, “yes.” TI was sending a team of project managers and engineers to build a semi-conductor factory in central Italy, and my young husband was somehow, miraculously, selected to go. We were 27 years old. It was absolutely crazy, and I would never recommend it to someone else, but it was the right move for us and we have never regretted it.

We packed up our little family and moved into an apartment in Rome, spent a very hot summer navigating a challenging city, made some wonderful friends and watched with awe as the wall between east and west Berlin came down in the summer of 1989. Three weeks before my due date, my husband had to have an emergency appendectomy. Baby #3 came at the end of the summer a few weeks later. Kirk had been putting off a business trip to Switzerland and left when our son was 3 days old. I was drowning in post-partum crazy. In hindsight, I really don’t now how we made it.

When the baby was 2 months old, we moved two hours east, to a little village called Celano. We found the perfect house almost immediately.

When we pulled up in the driveway, I knew this was it. I didn’t even have to go inside. After 6 months cooped up in a Roman apartment with 2 toddlers and now a colicky newborn, with no yard and no porch or balcony, I was ready to move on. The white stucco house was surrounded by a small yard with fencing and a gate at the foot of the driveway. There were well-maintained vegetable and flower gardens on one side of the yard and a great view of a 12th-century castle up above us on the hillside that made up this little Italian village we would call home for the next 9 months. The inside of the house was almost inconsequential at this point – I was sold – although all our excitement was confirmed upon entry. Three distinct bedrooms, two baths, all the necessities. It even had a garage with a fireplace!

One of the amenities of this particular house was unexpected and certainly not in the listing. Her name was Ines, and she was the best part of living in that house. Within hours of our move-in, she appeared at the door bearing some token of greeting. She lived next door, was about 55 years old and fully the stereotypical Italian housewife. Not yet a grandmother, but ripe for the job as she oogled over our blonde-haired, blue-eyed children, she was curious about why we were there. For a short time, I wondered if her overture of friendship was solely based on the fact that her adult son, Cesare, needed a job and my husband was an important engineer working on the new Texas Instruments factory in town. (She even offered him $5,000 once as a personal bonus!)

But my suspicions were unfounded. She was such a faithful friend to me. When I returned to the US and encountered foreigners living in my neighborhood, I realized just how extraordinary she was. I have never poured as much time and energy into anyone as Ines did me. Not even close.

Nearly every day at first, she was at the door with treats for the kids. She always required un baccetto before they were allowed to have the candy though. Only 2-year-old Jonathan was bold enough at first to give the “little kiss” – he knew the power of a bargain. She and her husband Augusto owned a “bar,” a little snack shop/soda fountain/coffee and alcohol bar. Their house was a three-story structure with the bar and their kitchen/living room on the first floor, their sleeping quarters on the second and an apartment being prepared for their son and his wife-to-be on the third floor.

Her home was a source of entertainment for the children. There was a garage/barn behind the house and a garden and pigsty behind that. Two huge ugly pigs lived there. The pigs’ blue eyes and big fat noses fascinated them. There were chickens and rabbits housed in the garage-barn. We ended up with one lucky rabbit that we promptly named “Weber.” I have no idea where that name came from! But he was spared, at least for 9 months, the fate of his garage-mates and was our family pet. There was always a fire in Ines’ kitchen fireplace through that cold winter, and the heat it provided was only embellished by the warmth of Ines’ winsome personality and friendship. She insisted I prende il caffe with her as often as possible, even though I was breastfeeding and shouldn’t have the level of caffeine an Italian espresso provided. Besides that, I didn’t even really like coffee back then. We put lots of sugar and milk in and I only sipped it. She mixed a little coffee with chocolate and warm milk as a swimming pool for the little animal crackers that the children loved as a treat. A trip to the bar was always necessary as well for the candy – in exchange for a little kiss, of course.

The language barrier didn’t hinder Ines’ efforts. My Italian hadn’t progressed much beyond buon giorno and ciao in the 6 months we’d lived in Rome. Everyone there spoke English. But out here in the country, I needed to move on. Ines was a patient tutor, although she probably had no idea I viewed her as such. She would never allow me to get out my dictionary to look up an unfamiliar word. She would gesture in a sign language or explain using different vocabulary. Little by little, we began to communicate using words although other forms of communication were going on all the time. Of course, as everyone knows, Italians are experts at sign language. She was becoming a dear friend.

Her gifts continued throughout that time – fresh homemade fettucine, eggs, vegetables, wine from their vineyard. In the spring they butchered one of the pigs. Poor thing, hanging there in the garage by its hind hooves, draining. Even Jonathan piped in with his sole Italian word, schiffo, “gross,” the sentiment we all felt. Ines used every bit of that animal and was soon at our door with pork chops, soap, and headcheese…I think.

I learned so much of that culture from Ines. She talked with me about village life, her church, friendships, loud arguments, farming, her travels, raising children. She was a knowledgeable woman, highly intelligent, and well known and liked in the community. She greeted my parents warmly when they came from the States for a visit, took them into her kitchen and fed them. We all still talk about her and her loathsome homemade wine.

At times she could be annoying, to be sure. She was pushy and opinionated. She dominated conversations, taking them where she wanted them to go and avoiding subjects that were too close for comfort. She went on for weeks about the fact that we had not baptized our newborn son. I am sure she was quite worried about Nathan’s place in heaven, and she probably secretly had the priest over while she was babysitting! But all good friends have their problems and all good friends work them out.

My italian neighbor

A special day

proposals