Remember the Titans

Anonymous So as I sit here on my bed listening to the theme song from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" after a lovely, quiet evening out to dinner with my roommates while everyone else enjoys the hustle and bustle of a Greek soccer game, I can't help but reflect on the past and the future.  This is an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life, for sure.  Just the freedom and peace of it, mostly.  Wandering around a cemetery, for instance is not something I would think of doing for an instant back home.  Here it almost seemed peaceful and reflective.  Maybe because it's so far from the people I've lost back home.  The cemetery made me connect the dots in my head with today's blog theme.  Remembering the memories of the "Titans" in our lives who have gone before us.  For me that definitely equates to my grandparents, and my uncles.  Though I never met two of my grandparents, and one of my uncles, I still feel their presence with me.  Mom will say to me, "You are SO much like your grandma!  Always so stubborn and opinionated!"  Of my Italian grandmother, Concetta.  Those who are just getting to know me may not know this side of me, but when it comes to an issue or thing I am passionate about, it comes out full fledged.  While I have travelled to New York, to visit family, I have never paid respects to my grandma and uncle at their graves in NY, and the visit to the cemetery today made me think, "Hm, maybe I should put my mind to doing that."  As in the Greek culture, the Italian culture values family above all else, "blood is thicker than water", my dad always says.  And I can definitely tell that holds true in Greece as well with the elaborate designs on the graves in the cemetery.  My grandparents' on my mom's side of the family are buried back home in Bremerton, so I visit their graves often.  My grandma Dotty's favorite symbol was praying hands, so they adorn her grave.  And to me, this definitely symbolizes my gram.  Pure grace and elegance.  So my advice is this: cherish those close to you.  No matter what.  Tell a grandparent you love them EVERY day.  Some of us just don't have that luxury!  And miss it!