Discovery

This past summer, I recently found out that my mother could speak pretty fluent Italian. I walked by her one day while she was on the phone with my aunt and I was so surprised to be hearing this. After she hung up I asked why I had never known about this and how I had never heard her after 18 years. When she was younger, she lived with her grandparents who came straight out of Sicily. They spoke Italian around the house nonstop, but I never really had put it together that maybe she learned how to speak it also. So here I am, the summer before I’m about to go away to college, and I am just finding out about this. Not only was I shocked but I was also a little upset. With how big my heritage is, I would have expected to be well aware of her ability. Plus, I thought that my mom had shared everything with me and I felt let down and disappointed. I didn’t know why this was such a secret. After I had a long talk with my mom, I realized that there was so much I didn’t know about her, which ended up being a strange feeling. Growing up and being at this stage in life, you figure you know everything there is to know about your parents. But after listening to my mom, I learned that there was so much I didn’t know about her life growing up. It was all so interesting that I also went to talk to my dad later that night. Talking with my parents really opened me up to this whole new part of their lives that I felt I had never known about. I feel that if others took the chance to sit down with a parent, grandparent or any family member that they could end up finding out a lot more about that person that they maybe didn’t expect. It definitely made me closer with my mom and I truly think others could also learn from my experiences and try the same thing.