Ti Amo

Early in the Twentieth Century, Pietro Menotti stood on a ship’s deck among throngs of weary, penniless immigrants like himself. Staring into the haze of a summer day, he saw the first of two women who would determine the course of his life. She was the mighty lady with a torch whose message to foreign lands had attracted millions: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”



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The Mother of Exiles brought tears to Pietro’s eyes. The other woman brought his heart into his throat. She was the petite, raven-haired beauty standing next to him as the new arrivals set foot on Ellis Island, New York. The name on her tattered suitcase was Videlma Zepponi. 

 Before these young Italians truly breathed free, they spent years toiling under the blank and pitiless gaze of a torrid southern sun, tending cotton crops of wealthy plantation owners. 

 They fell in love. She called him Pete; he called her Mae. Each morning, as they climbed aboard mule-pulled wagons, hoe or cotton sack in hand, and headed their separate ways, they waved to each other. “Ti amo, Mae,” he’d say. “Ti amo, Pete.”

 Both squirreled away what they could of their meager earnings. Pete bought a ring, and on one knee, asked, “Ti amo, Mae. Lei me sposerà?” Translated, “I love you, Mae. Will you marry me?” My grandparents became man and wife. They settled in the Mississippi Delta, near Leland, a small farming town. Accustomed to hard work, the two bent to the task of making the American dream come true. They learned to speak English, and on one of the proudest days of their lives, became naturalized citizens of this great nation. They bought a few acres of land, built a home, raised and educated four children. 

 Mr. and Mrs. Menotti celebrated Valentine’s Day 70 times. During their last years together, Mae watched television while preparing Pete’s favorite evening meal, a salad garnished with crisp green leaves of radicchio, a type of chicory Italians have relished for centuries. Pete preferred spending the late afternoon hours in the back porch swing, gazing across fields he had plowed, planted and harvested for so many years. 

 So that Mae wouldn’t have to walk the length of the house to summon Pete to supper, their children rigged a speaker on the back porch attached to a dictation device near her chair. When his meal was ready, she picked up the microphone and called him by saying what she had said for over seven decades: “Ti amo.” Mae buried Pete, and bought a plot beside his for herself. Her son farmed the land and checked on her daily. One morning he found his mother, slumped in her favorite chair, one lifeless hand clutching radicchio, the other, the microphone. Her last words had been, “Ti amo.”