Anne Mazzella
A small tribute to my grandmother.
I had the only Italian American grandmother who couldn’t cook.
My grandmother, for all her incredible qualities, had the tendency to screw up everything in the kitchen from ravioli to cold cuts. When I was younger, I knew her food didn’t taste great, but I wouldn’t let anyone insult my grandmother’s cooking. I’d eat more of her food in spite of my taste buds to prove them wrong and often end up with a stomach ache. In my young mind, my grandmother was perfect. Poisonous lasagna and all.
I often think about the time we decided to make guacamole with the fresh avocados we picked from her garden in San Diego. I was still in Lower School at the time and had a vague idea of what ingredients went into the recipe. We had avocados, tomatoes, and lemons… but no limes. I insisted we needed limes to complete the guacamole, but my grandmother only grew lemons and oranges in her backyard. Under the false impression that all citrus is interchangeable, we decided to throw in some orange juice, resulting in a green monstrosity that no one in the family wanted to touch. My grandma and I stood over the sink with our guacamole, which we New York Italians should have never attempted in the first place, and we laughed and laughed.
I won’t cherish the smells of her kitchen or pass down her recipes to my children, but I will always cherish the memory of our laughter and her incredible smile. Sometimes life’s best moments come from throwing recipes out the window and finding joy in the unexpected. Anne Mazzella knew how to embrace that.
When her son called to tell her, he was going to be a father, Anne responded with the now infamous line, “How are you going to have a baby when you’re not married?” She was a devout Catholic, after all, and grew up through the Great Depression. Although she initially viewed having a baby out of wedlock as impossible, she quickly pivoted. She couldn’t have been more excited to embrace her granddaughter (me) with open arms. She was able to be faithful without being judgmental. As I grew up, I never felt judged for my decisions, even as they deviated from her experience and values.
A testament to her open-mindedness is the time we wandered around the Whitney together while I was in Middle School. Grandma was visiting New York, and the two of us had been left to our own devices in the museum. We were about to stroll into a temporary exhibit when a museum guard warned us that we might not like what was inside. We weren’t phased. We shrugged it off, all the more curious. The next moment, we found ourselves in front of ten-foot-tall pornographic photographs.1 They were massive glossy color prints. Other people might have walked out after the first ball gag, but the two of us walked quickly through the entire exhibit without exchanging more than a few words. I have no doubt that she regretted walking into that exhibit, but she didn’t let it show or demonize what we saw. Instead, she let me make up my own mind, and we went to brunch.
Anne was kind, strong, generous, and wildly creative. Even in her mid-nineties, she didn’t let age stop her from creating new memories with her family. She played with her great-grandchildren, danced at my cousins’ weddings, and flew to New York from California at ninety-five for my high school graduation. She painted her grandchildren from their school pictures and created a sprawling mural of the United States on the wall of her garden. She created nature scenes of the changing seasons and still lifes of flowers. You could see her art had evolved with the eras of her life. My favorite of her paintings is a small cubist Adam and Eve from the 80s. It’s so different from the nature scenes and portraits that I grew up seeing on the walls of her home. It now hangs proudly in my New York apartment.
My grandmother was the best pen pal I’ve ever had. She never missed an occasion to send a card and often sent notes for no reason at all. She made the most fabulous note cards out of googly eyes,2 glitter, feathers, and ribbon that I’ve never been able to send because I cherish them as small art pieces. When we exchanged letters, I felt like I had a confidant in her, even if we spent one-fourth of each card recounting the weather. Even when I couldn’t think of the words to say - in person or in writing - there was comfort in simply being together. I remember the peaceful feeling of sitting in the garden behind her house. She’d show me all the things she’d planted and the beautiful things that were blooming. As the breeze ran through her wind chimes, we would sit quietly or assign names to the Gnome figurines that hung from her trellis.
I remember childhood days of climbing the tree in her garden, playing on the swing, riding my tiny bike around her garden, and watching TMC movies on her green carpet floors. It’s hard not to look back at it all through rose-colored glasses. I think I got to know the best of her - the understanding, doting grandmother. I didn’t get to see all the layers of her personality or learn about most of her experiences in one hundred years on this earth. I wish I’d thought of more questions while I had time to ask them. I can’t imagine how many stories are buried with her now. Everything I could have said is clear now that it’s too late, but I can’t hold onto regrets. It’s not what Anne would want.
I find solace in the fact that I visited and wrote to my grandmother as much as I could while she was alive. We spent quality time together when it counted. I can picture her at Palm Sunday mass and rewinding her cuckoo clocks. I remember sleepovers at her house as a kid and playing cards at the kitchen table. I can see her as she was when she was as sharp as a tack and funny. She really was funny in the most unexpected ways.
Anne knew I loved her, and I’m thankful I had the chance to tell her so many times. However, my grandmother never let me outdo her, ending every goodbye, conversation, and phone call - even our last - with the phrase:
“I love you more.”
Think more explicit and less tasteful than Robert Mapplethorpe.
Before Everything Everywhere All at Once made them cool.
Sweetest post and the sweetest memories Sophia <3 Sending you hugs and kisses.
Just beautiful, Sophia. Well said. May Anne's name ever be for a blessing. xoChrista