During the second week in January, my family was given the news that my grandmother Elda Cristini’s kidneys were functioning well below the levels that indicate “End Stage” kidney failure. And while the doctor gave her two weeks to live, they said that really, “She shouldn’t be alive.”
Frankly, I don’t think it’s possible to sugarcoat anything from someone who lived in a time when acquiring sugar was illegal. Even before she got the truth that she demanded, I think my grandmother recognized that she was transitioning into death.
It took a few days in a hospital bed but in a brief moment of universal understanding, I watched an expression I had never seen flash across my grandmother's face. It was a brief smirk that I’ll never forget. It was like watching a cat well beyond her nine lives realizing that she’s at the end of her last, a prolific bank robber in the midst of a heist realizing that finally, they were going to be caught. It was an expression of relief and grief, of graceful acceptance, but also a will to fight for just a little bit longer.
It felt like her spirit shining through.
Speaking to herself, but maybe also to her own anchors–God, Padre Pio, her mother, I watched and listened to her say in Italian “Il momento è arrivato.”
The moment has arrived.
In what shouldn’t come as a surprise, Elda would go on to live until April 30th, well beyond the two weeks her doctors gave her. While she may have acknowledged that the transition had begun, she wasn't ready to go right away. Over the last few months, my family and her closest friends were able to continue to create many beautiful and lasting memories.
The night before her passing, Elda sat at her kitchen table with my mother making zucchine alla parmigiana.
Today would have been Elda’s 103rd birthday.
* * *
I could say a lot more. Maybe, in time, I will.
What I do want to express now is how grateful I am to everyone who helped preserve, share, and elevate my grandmother’s spirit through Heart-Shaped Tomatoes, most notably my mom Maria Cristini, the book’s co-author Madelyn Wigle, and the book’s designer Mitch Wiesen.
I also want to thank everyone who has purchased a copy of Heart-Shaped Tomatoes and more importantly who read my grandmother’s stories and recipes and made them their own. It's an honor to know that her story resonated with so many people and that her legacy will be carried on through the hearts, minds, and bellies of so many people she never met.
My grandmother passed knowing that hundreds of people from all over the United States, and even a few abroad, have made her recipes! At the moment I only have about 25% of the copies of Heart-Shaped Tomatoes that I started with. Realistically, I don’t see myself continuing to promote this book in the same way that I was able to before. If you feel inclined to purchase another copy for a friend, I would genuinely appreciate it. I look forward to sending this project off together with my grandmother.