This week was all about family.
Long before our move to Italy, we had planned a trip to Rocca di Neto for April of 2026. I turned 50 in February and wanted to go to Italy to see where my father grew up and connect with my relatives. At the time, I was even hoping my father would be able to come too.
My father hadn’t been back to Italy in about 20 years. For his 70th birthday, my brother Mario and I helped him renew his green card so he could get his passport and travel again. This April would have been the perfect time.
Running in the background of all of this since 2018 was my effort to obtain Italian citizenship.
I had worked with a lawyer for a few years who suggested that the fastest path might be to move to Italy temporarily and apply from here. At the time, that didn’t feel realistic. We had kids still in school and jobs that wouldn’t allow for that kind of move. Who has the luxury of just packing up and heading to Italy “for a while”?
So I gathered all the paperwork and began the process through the Italian consulate in the United States. Because we live in Connecticut, that meant going through the New York City consulate. The wait time for an appointment there is several years long. After years of gathering and translating the correct documents, I added my name to the list in June of 2022 and still haven’t received an appointment.
Then last year, everything shifted in ways we couldn’t imagine.
I unexpectedly retired. Not long after, my father passed away in August. The months surrounding that were a whirlwind of family chaos and change. Daren was still working full time, but we started talking about what we really wanted next.
We both wanted to keep working—but in a way that allowed for more flexibility, less stress, and more control over our time.
And suddenly, moving to Italy for a year didn’t feel unrealistic anymore. It felt right.
After my father passed, the three of us—his children—made the decision that Pops would still go to Rocca in April. We cleared it with the family in Italy, who thought it was a great idea. This week, we carried that plan out.
Before moving to Italy, we had even considered settling in Calabria to be closer to family. We visited the area last October. I had met many of my relatives before in the United States when they visited.
When we arrived last fall, we were welcomed at the small airport in Crotone by my uncle and two aunts. The airport is so small they were practically at the gate. Even though it had been many years since we had seen one another, we all recognized each other right away.
And then came the welcome.
It was like the movies—one long table, full of food, constant conversation, introductions, laughter. We spent a few days with them, fully immersed in it all.
For me, it truly felt like home.
I lost my mom when she was 49, and my dad last summer. For the past 15 years or so, my father didn’t really have a place of his own, so “going home” meant going to newer places that were fine, but didn’t have a deep connection to me.
But in Italy—even having not been there since I was very little—it felt familiar.
My relatives’ homes were decorated the same way my parents decorated. The same types of frames, candy dishes, the same overall feel and aesthetic.
My uncle Joe and his wife even had the same dishes my parents had. My aunt said it was because she and my mom bought them at the same time.
My aunt Sarah’s food tastes just like my mom’s did. It’s uncanny—especially the rabbit sauce. When I told her this, she said it was because her mom (my grandmother, and my mom’s mother-in-law) taught them both how to make it.
We don’t know each other well, but my cousins—especially the men—have the same mannerisms as my father and brothers. The same humor, the same playful energy. They laugh and carry on with the same joy we had when my father was alive.
The language barrier was there, but it was also strangely fun to navigate. We made it work.
When we visited last fall, we seriously considered moving closer to them.
There are real benefits. It’s much easier to practice Italian when people are patient and willing to wait while you find the words or look them up. Learning feels more natural that way.
But Calabria is far south and not close to major international travel routes. With four adult children and family back home, we felt more at ease staying connected and accessible. Being that far away made us feel just a little too vulnerable.
And even though we didn’t move here, we are driving away, having carried out the plan to bring Pops back to his hometown on Rocca.
Thursday we packed into few cars and made the short trip up the road to local town cemetery where the family has a mausoleum. We placed my father’s ashes amongst the other relatives that have passed alongside his parents (my grandparents).
My brother Frankie and his partner Mary were with us this time, and Daren and I took immense joy in seeing how quickly they were welcomed and made to feel at home—that they were with family.
It was special to see the experience we had before through their eyes, and to be back in it ourselves—this time understanding just a little bit more of the rhythm and the sounds around us.
Calabria feels like home. Not because I had been there before—but because so much of it already lived in me. The way people gather, the way meals are shared, the way homes are filled with the same small details I grew up with.
It made me realize that home isn’t always a place you return to. Sometimes it’s something that travels quietly through generations—carried in traditions, in mannerisms, in the way people connect with each other.
Being with people I barely know, in a place I had never lived, somehow—and truly—feels like home. It All Clicks.
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