Saturday, August 1, 2009

I love you, Mom.. Wayne.


Nina Anna Granata found refuge in her garden and "hid" from the gross injustices and pain and suffering of a very cruel world in the fruit trees and roses that she nurtured for fifty six years with her bare hands.







My Mother with my Brother, Peewee.








http://web.mac.com/videopalitalia/iWeb/Site/Photos.html

NOW IS THE TIME FOR ALL GOOD PEOPLE TO COME TO THE AID OF THEIR COUNTRY!


+ NINA ANNA GRANATA +

Nato 6 gennaio 1926 Morto 30 luglio 2009

So, this is that day that I had rehearsed 10,000 times in my head: my Italian Mother, Nina Anna Granata, has died in my presence.

Then, I ask, why can I not see this computer screen through a fog of my tears? Why can I not stop crying? I do not understand this -here is a Mother who never said to me "I love you, Wayne" or hugged or touched me, unless I was coming out of an eight hour double-bypass heart surgery at GOOD Samaritan hospital?

I am sixty-two years old as my Mother never missed an opportunity to criticize me as she walked by me. Never.

The answer is this: No, I am not a glutton for punishment.

My take on Nina Anna Granata, my Italian Mother from Caserta, Italia, was that she was a very clever actress. (It is funny to me that we human beings, immediately after a loved one dies, refer to that person in the past tense -was. Immediately. My Mother was Nina Anna Granata was, is, and will always be Nina Anna Granata).

Nina was such a clever actress because she belied the chronic physical spiritual and emotional pain of a post World War II Italian Mother. We live in a very politically-correct time when no one likes to blame someone else for anything wrong. "Do not point fingers" as you do not want to "offend anyone or hurt someone's feelings." It's all good, ya know. NO WORRIES. Life is copiasettic.

For those in-the-know, life is tough and full of hardship and hard work. As Tina Turner sang, "Some of us like it hard and tough." She, as a battered wife, should know...

My fingers are pointed at the abuse, the neglect and the hypocrisy of a post World War II Italian family in Caserta, Italy, and a completely apathetic, boring and pathetic middle class noncalance that pervaded the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA after the War. Like Sophia Loren in "Two Women," Nina Anna Granata developed an acrid exterior to defend herself against the abuse, the rapes, the beatings of a very patriarchal-machismo world. Her Granata family rejected her, totally. Mom used to wake up, many times, in the middle of the night, "Screaming, Crying profusely, and Flaying her hands in fear." That was learned behaviour. She was not born with that. So, Giuseppe Granata -the consummate tax collector and smuggler like Joe Kennedy- why did you and your sons and your daughters terrorize, rape and beat my Mother? She was so petite and cute -as she never reached five feet tall. She was born in Caserta but sported beautiful deep blue Paul Newman eyes, even when they rolled back in your head as you lay dying on the bedroom floor. Is this why Paul Newman is my favourite actor? Is this why Sophia Loren is my favoutie actress -tough hard chocolate on the outside and milky-white cream, on the inside?

Nina Anna Granata, you see, was the last child out of fourteen children in Southern Italy. She was also the prettiest, the smartest and the most sensitive. I saw Mom come back from electric shock treatment in the sixties at the Camarillo mental hospital as she had outstretched her arms, like Jesus Christ in his Crucifixion, and she died like this as well. Nina took on the world with her anger and rebellious attitude. She was like a Chihuahua dog who fought the big dogs with everything she had. Nina was extremely critical and mean and resolute on the outside. SHE WAS SO SOFT AND LOVING AND VULNERABLE ON THE INSIDE. My Father, Walter or "Wally" Kurtz, was a humble and gentle man who had lied about his age to volunteer for the UNITED STATES ARMY in World War II, just to escape from the, you guessed it, the beatings, the rapes and the humiliations of a very predatory Lutheran home in Chicago. Think about it: my Dad would rather face being shot at by the insane GERMAN NAZIS than continue to live in that foster home. What does that tell you?

That foster home, as I now remember it, was called an orphanage. I, too, see life from the lonely eyes of an orphan. I loved my parents dearly but they were "emotionally dead" from their childhood scars. I wonder why God had put them together in Caserta, Italy? Why did my God allow me to be raped emotionally and physically and spiritually by FATHER MARK A. FALVEY, S. J., at Blessed Sacrament Church when I was an altar boy in the sixties? Why did my God allow this child molestation to happen to me and other innocent children? Why did my God place me as an English teacher at Firebaugh High School in Lynwood where the alleged child molester, former Firebaugh principal Jonas Silverio, was recently indicted on 17 counts of child molestaton? Today, Jonas Silverio is wearing an orange jump suit in the Los Angeles County jail as he awaits his tiral? Good questions with no answers. Good luck blaming GOD. Even better luck in suing Him or Her...:)

Intellectually, I know that my Mother is dead. She is not coming back to cook for me and wash for me and to complain what a lazy son that I had become. Emotionally, I can not accept the fact that Callanan mortuary in Glendale is replacing my Mother's blood with embalming fluid, today. The tears flow, on cue, automatically.

Look, if you want to feel sorry for me, please do so. I have been a Mamma's boy, all of my life. Who is going to cut my hair now? Who is going to cut my moustache and occasionally cut my lip with the scissors? Who is going to pray for me in the Good Samaritan chapel FOR EIGHT STRAIGHT HOURS while I was barely alive from my heart surgery on the fifth floor? Who is gong to protect me now? Who is going to stick up for me, now? Who is going to chase the squirrels from eating her fruit in the garden? Who is going to speak that beautiful fluent Italian to my nice Aunt, Angela, in Caserta, on the telephone? Who is going to sit next to me in my VW Jetta when we went to Saint Ambrose church for Mass or to go grocery shopping. Yes, it's getting tough, again, and all of you know what I am talking about, don't you?

It is the little things, isn't it?

I know in my heart-of-heart that my Mother, Nina Anna Granata, loved me with her whole being. At seventeen years old, Nina was already damaged goods by the time she had met my handsome Father, Walter Kurtz, a master sergeant from Chicago. And, yes, my Father was damaged as well. The truth is that we all have been damaged by "the system" or life or the Catholic Church or the government or whatever.

My Mother often told me how she kept an overnight vigil at the bedside of her dead Father, Giuseppe Granata, in Caserta on VIA ROMA. She told me how was rubbed virgin olive oil on his skin as it broke up in rigor mortice. And so, God gave me the opportunity to honour and respect my Mother, Nina Anna Granata, in the same way: my neighbor, Andy, on Greenace gave me some oil to rub on my Mom's body as she lay dying on the bedroom floor. I changed my Mom and kissed her on her rigid lips as God ushered into the Next World. Mom had told me in this what-was-to-be-the-last-week-in-her-life that my Brother Peewee and my Father Walter had come into her bedroom to beckon her to follow her into heaven. She got to do so at 10:30 pm on Thursday, July 30, 2009, at 1129 Greenacre Avenue in her bedroom. I was so blessed to be there with her and I thank God for that moment.

Last night, the roving drunks from the local "club" on Santa Monica Boulevard were making their usual loud and obnoxious noises at 2 am in front of our house. I had no instincts to call the police or chase them away because my Mother's body is in the mortuary today. I do not have to defend or protect her, anymore.

So, I am pleading for your prayers. Please pray for the soul -the anima- of my Italian Mother, Nina Anna Granata. I would give anything to have her back for one day so that she could complain about her lazy son. I am not suicidal but I am very weak right now. I do not feel like sleeping or eating. My friends and neighbors like Terri and Alex and Taylor are feeding me and taking care of me. Chuck and Marylou and Robert and Dr. Kowalcyk and Dr. Shiele are calling me to make sure that I am okay.

I am using my AA life skills to "LIVE ONE DAY AT A TIME," sometimes one moment at a time. Again, feel free to feel sorry for me. I will take it. I am looking around for a reason to go on, to exist. Please pray for me to get the "strength and courage" when we have to fight the LA County and probate court, who give new meaning to the words "heartless and ruthless."

My body is also reeling in pain from my work-related injuries while teaching at Firebaugh. I need your prayers and I sincerely thank you in advance. Hopefully, if I get healthier soon, I can help my students who have been abused and neglected to help themselves to a good education and a healthy life. That is my motivation to go on. Nothing else...

I miss you, Mom...I'll always love you, Mom. I am so sorry that you suffered so much in this very cruel world. I am so sorry that I disappointed you with my lifelong depression and anxiety from being raped as well as a child. Please touch me now, Mom, and hug me, now, Mom, from Heaven because you no longer have to act like you are not in chronic pain. You do not have to hide anymore, Mom, behind your beautiful fruit trees in the garden. You do not have to pretend anymore, Mom, that you did not love me or care for me.

I am an actor, too, as I have always known that you loved me.

I will not expedite my death but I look forward to being with my Mom and my Dad and my Brother and my dog Bear in heaven.

I will see you soon, Mom, and please make a safe place on your lap so that you can gently stroke my hair and not be afraid to say "I love, you, Wayne."

I know that you are now sitting at the feet of Jesus and Mary and Joseph a cielo.

In your memory and honour, I chase away the squirrels and bring flowers to the statue of Saint Joseph and water your roses and fruit trees.

I can never say "goodbye" to you, Mom, but will continue your work here for social justice on earth and healing for abused and neglected orphans...

"I love you, Mom, and I feel your love for me, always"...I am your loving son, Wayne.

I genuinely thank each and everyone of you for taking your valuable time to read about my Mom's life and death. I pray to my God that you and your familes are blessed with good health and peace of mind.






















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