Life as a foreigner and single woman in Italy is not all “la dolce vita”

Some years ago, I wrote a couple of blog entries (see links below) about what it was like to be a female foreigner in Italy, with knowledge gained through observations, interviews with the women in my family, and books and articles. I believe this is vital information for women when considering the important decision to change countries, even for short stays, but much more so for those who are considering completely uprooting and buying or renting long term in Italy.

But it’s clearly obvious that I don’t qualify as any kind of expert on the topic, so I’d like to refer you to the observations of fellow blogger and author Chandi Wyant, a single woman who moved from California to Tuscany around the same time that Lucy and I started living in Montecarlo part time.

In her recent Substack, titled Chiming in on the Move to Italy Discourse, Chandi writes: “Americans become obsessed after vacationing in Italy and via hyper idealized Hollywood movies. I totally get the vacation thing. But vacationing and living in Italy are two very different things.”

Chandi Wyant

Chandi goes on to explain some of the not-so-sweet things about living la dolce vita as a foreigner, most particularly as a foreign woman. One of her first observations—something Lucy and I have seen as well—is that though Italians are very friendly with foreigners, it can be difficult to break into Italian social circles in more than a superficial way. Many of their friendships date back to childhood, and Italians can see us stranieri as very temporary, which in truth is pretty accurate. It’s also true that our developing language skills don’t allow us to have deep conversations anyway, and that’s another factor. It’s worth it to note that many of our best Italian friends here also speak English.

I’ve been told more than once that the best way for me to integrate into Italian society and learn the language more quickly would be to get an Italian girlfriend. For some reason, Lucy is not a big fan of that idea! Nor am I, for that matter. I’m okay with knowing I’ll never truly have close Italian friends or speak the language flawlessly, largely because I have such a great partner with whom I can share everything—and who also laughs at my sometimes pitiful attempts at humor (in fact, I showed her this paragraph and she chuckled).

My and my "girlfriend," doing our best to
blend into the Italian scene.

But all joking aside, I’m sure my life in Montecarlo would be somewhat lonely if I were single. And my difficulties would be multiplied many times, from what I’ve heard, if I were single and a woman. Chandi writes that she has given up dating, because most of the men who asked her out were seeking a relationship only for—to be blunt—sexual reasons. She’s also had difficulties with contractors who have tried to take advantage of her financially. While unscrupulous contractors may try to hoodwink men as well, experience shows that they see a single woman as an easier target. Not only that, Chandi even had to fight off two contractors who tried to assault her physically.

Chandi and I are not saying don’t move to Italy—there are many, many beautiful things about living here—but be aware that you will also be changing one set of problems for a host of new ones. Yes, the food here is great, and the cost of living is lower (outside of the large cities, at least), but so are the salaries. I could go on and on about the differences, but I digress. I want to focus more on the social aspects of life in Italy as a single woman.

Regarding her home remodeling, Chandi noted that hiring and managing male workers as a foreigner and single woman proved to be extremely frustrating and difficult. “Almost every worker was stupefied not to find a man in charge,” she wrote. “One of their first sentences was, ‘Sei sposata?’ After a year and a half of this, I was ready to scream and throw a hammer at a wall if I had to hear the question again about my marital status. Of course, it was none of their business, but they very much thought it was their business.”

I recommend reading Chandi’s eye-opening account, and while you’re there, you can sign up for her Substack and get her insider information on Florence—including fascinating art and history insights. She’s a historian of the Renaissance and a licensed guide.

My advice to any single woman—or couple, for that matter—considering moving to Italy is to do something that Lucy and I did. We came for three months at a time, always to the same place. We rented an apartment in an agriturismo, took language lessons, met our neighbors, and learned as much as we could about how to live as Italians. After our five-year trial period, we decided to buy our own home. By this time, we had looked at many houses and locations, and we knew exactly where we wanted to live. We had friends who helped us inspect the house, set up a bank account, select a geometra and notaio, and accompany us at the closing meeting. Had we purchased one of the other homes we had looked at over the years, it would have been a mistake. Without trusted friends to help with the purchase, we could have wasted thousands of euros. Making a major life change on a whim may work out in the movies, but it rarely does in real life.

Footnotes: Chandi has also written a book, Return to Glow: A Pilgrimage of Transformation in Italy.

My earlier blog entries about how women are treated in Italy are

Is Italy a safe and healthy place for young women (and men)?

Do Italian males live up to reputation for persistent and flirtatious behavior?

 

Chestnuts, once essential for survival, now just a thorn in my life

Chestnut trees and their fruit have been a vital part of Tuscan culture probably since the dawn of humanity. Lucy and I learned about the importance of chestnuts years ago when we visited the Museo del Castagno in Colognora in the Garfagnana. People roasted and ate the nuts and also ground them into flour. They used fallen tree branches to heat their homes, and the trunks to build their houses and make all kinds of tools and furniture. In short, nobody could have made a living in the hilly areas of Italy without chestnut trees.

However, they have not been so friendly to me. I recently discovered that chestnuts are the reason I’ve had so many flat tires on my bike while riding on the country roads around Montecarlo. Andrea, the guy at the bike shop who fixes my tires, showed me that I had more than 10 chestnut spines in my tires. Most of them were too short to reach the inner tube, but it only takes one biggy to do the job. After Andrea patched the inner tube, he used a needle-nosed pliers to remove the other spines. Now that I’ve realized why Lucy and I keep getting flats, I’ve vowed to check our tires regularly and pull the spines out myself with tweezers before they can work their way into the inner tubes. Hopefully this realization will save us a few trips to the bike shop in the future.

Our search for a physical therapist in Italy is a grand success

Lucy has her cast checked while in Gig Harbor
in February.

We are currently in the middle of our second encounter as official members of the Italian medical system. Last August on a trip in the Alps, Lucy tore her Achilles tendon before we came to our Montecarlo home in September. I went through a lengthy process to enroll us in the Italian health care system so that she could go to a doctor here in Tuscany (see One more small step). However, it was almost time to leave for Gig Harbor when we finally managed to see the doctor, so we decided to have the needed surgery in Tacoma in January.

Following the surgery, where they took a tendon from her big toe and grafted it onto her Achilles, Lucy spent five and half weeks in a cast and another two weeks in a walking boot. She started physical therapy in March, but now we’re back in Italy. Her therapist in Gig Harbor said it was essential for her to continue therapy so that she could gain the flexibility and strength she would need to walk normally.

On Tuesday, we went to the doctor’s office to make an appointment. We were asked if it was urgent and said no, so we were given an appointment date of about two weeks away. At that point, I explained to the secretary that we just needed a referral to a physical therapist, so she said we could come back that evening at 6 p.m. and wait for an opening in Dr. Fulceri’s schedule.

We came back a little before 6 p.m. and waited about an hour, while I mentally prepared to explain in Italian Lucy’s history and condition, but that was unnecessary. The doctor (he’s actually still in his final year of medical school) said he needed to work on his English for his coming exams, so my preparations were unneeded. Lucy explained her situation, and he told us that physical therapy would probably be covered under the system, but he needed to do a little research and get back to us the next day.

We received an email with a prescription the next morning, which we took to the pharmacy as instructed. By the way, the prescription was in the form of a pdf, with bar codes that the pharmacist was able to scan, giving all the needed information—a very efficient and modern system, it seems to me. However, after logging into her computer, she told us that there were absolutely no openings in all the province of Lucca within the next 10 days—and if I understood correctly, the prescription was only valid for that length of time. She said we could go to the regional health care office in Lucca to see if they could help us, but we got the feeling that we’d get the same answer there. Instead, since we live only five minutes from the border between the provinces of Lucca and Pistoia, we decided to drive to Pescia and try a pharmacy there—but with the same result. The pharmacist was apologetic and explained that this was a common issue in Italy. She said we could continue coming back to try again in a few days, but most people just made private appointments and paid for care instead of waiting.

So the next day, we decided to go directly to the fisioterapista in Altopascio that Dr. Fulceri had recommended, and fortunately we were seen immediately. Dr. Francesco Monachino gave Lucy a quick exam and noted that one of the reasons she was walking strangely is that her left leg was now a little shorter than her right leg. He recommended an insert of .5 centimeters, which we were able to purchase at the pharmacy. Lucy said she noted an immediate improvement in her gait and sensation of balance.

Dr. Monachino scheduled two appointments for us, one on Friday and the other on Monday. I’m writing this shortly after the first appointment, in which the doctor spent the majority of the session massaging and manipulating Lucy’s foot and ankle. He said that massaging the tendon was essential to break down and prevent the formation of scar tissue. He will do more massaging on the next appointment, he said, and also work on some exercises to improve strength and flexibility.

We were both very impressed with Dr. Monachino’s knowledge, professionalism and manner, and we’re also thrilled that we were able to so quickly find a physical therapist here. Yes, we weren’t able to get one that is paid by the state, but he actually costs less than we were paying for visits in the U.S.

It turns out that Lucy's physical therapist, shown
here, is actually semi-famous for being the PT
of world-renowned race car driver Robert Kubica.

In fact, the cost is one of the most astounding parts of the comparison between Italian and American health care. Dr. Monachino charged 35 euros for a half hour session, and he said that Monday he will charge the same for a full hour. In America, with insurance, we had a co-pay fee of $50 per visit. But the real shock came from looking at one of the EOBs, (explanation of benefits) from our insurance company. It seems that for each visit, the physical therapy clinic sent a bill that ranged from $200-300. The insurance company, of course, did not allow the full amount, instead paying around $80-110. Adding in the $50 we paid, that means the clinic was receiving about $130-160 for each visit, which lasted 40 minutes.

Lucy said that sometimes each therapist was dealing with two patients at the same time. The therapist would give Lucy some exercises to do, and then go and work with the other patient, returning to Lucy after giving the other patient some attention and then an exercise to work on—so essentially a 40-minute session only required about 20 minutes of the therapist’s time.

It’s not the intention of my blog to make value judgments on the differences between countries. We’re just relating our experiences as they occur and leaving it up to our readers to draw whatever conclusions. It’s also important to remember that experiences in Italy vary widely, so what happens to us may be vastly different than what happens to someone else. However, even with this disclaimer, I can’t resist noting that our American health care system is seriously wacked. If we had no insurance, would that physical therapy clinic in Gig Harbor really bill us $200-300 for 40 minutes of treatment?

On the other side of the coin, I noted that Dr. Monachino has an undergraduate degree in fisioterapia from the University of Pisa, and a masters degree in sports fisioterapia from the University of Siena. He has a 4.9 out of 5 rating in his Google reviews. Doesn’t that seem to merit fees of more than 35 euros per session? This could be why in the 10 years between 2005 and 2015, more than 10,000 doctors left Italy and moved abroad, according to The Italian Insider magazine. The article, published Feb. 4, 2019, went on the say: “Their departure is a damaging problem that is increasingly being felt as the National Health Service continues to lose even more professionals . . . Italy is committed to the training of excellent health professionals, spending large sums of money and then gives this heritage to others.”

Having the opportunity to observe the interesting differences between Italian and American societies is one of the pleasures of our divided existence. It would be easy to judge or complain that one country should emulate the other, but I try to avoid doing this. These countries have developed their societal systems over many years, and making sweeping changes would be like trying to change the tire on a car while it’s still moving. I prefer to observe, learn and do my best to adapt to the requirements of living in each separate world.

Driving in Italian cities without GPS not recommended!

We're home! Enjoying our other life
again in Montecarlo, Toscana.

Dang, how did anyone get anywhere in Italy before GPS? We arrived in Firenze Saturday evening, and though I had activated my Italian phone during our layover in Germany, for some reason I had only phone service, with no data. Therefore, after I got in my rental car and tried to drive back to the airport to pick up Lucy and our luggage, I almost immediately got lost. I had walked about 15 minutes to the rental car agency, but the routes for a walker and a driver are very, very different. Italian cities are full of one-way streets that are almost never straight for very long. When I took that first wrong turn, the street quickly looped in the opposite direction of the airport.

Most Italian cities do not have streets set up in a grid format, and many streets are one-way only.

I didn’t realize how much in the opposite direction I was going. I was looking for signs to take me back to the airport, but apparently, they don’t put these signs up for people going in the exact wrong direction, which makes sense. Gas stations in the city are almost all self-serve, with no attendant on duty, and most streets had no other places to pull over and ask for directions. Every once in a while, I’d see an airport sign and follow it, but at the next intersection, there would be no sign. Or there would be 15 signs, and I would frantically try to scan them all while the drivers behind me honked impatiently.

I’m embarrassed to admit that it took me at least 50 minutes to get back to the airport. I had no way to contact Lucy during this time, so she was wondering and worrying. Then we faced a second problem: Finding our bed and breakfast without working GPS. We made a brief effort, but after realizing again that we’d taken a wrong turn and now had no idea which direction to go, I decided to give up and just drive to our home in Montecarlo. Ahead of me was the familiar onramp for the A11 autostrada, and I knew I could find my way home from there, so I pulled over, called the Airbnb proprietor and said we weren’t coming after all. We only live an hour from the airport, so it really wasn’t that hard to stay awake. I’m not really sure why I had planned to stay the night in Firenze anyway.

Afterword: The next week, I went to the phone store we frequent in Altopascio, and the clerk there showed me that I need to sign up for a specific data plan with my provider. Hopefully, I’ll be able to figure this out on my own next time. It’s hard to believe that anyone ever survived in Italy without GPS. However, I should add that driving in the countryside in Italy is not at all difficult, nor is driving on an autostrada. Don't take my story as advice to avoid renting a car. I would say to make sure you have access to GPS, and avoid driving in large cities if at all possible. The biggest risk about driving in cities is not actually getting lost but getting ticketed for accidentally driving in a limited traffic zone (ZTL).

 

40 years after a harrowing aerial crash, my friend the pilot and the lady who administered aid find some closure

All of my hobbies, skills and interests combined dramatically recently to produce a fascinating and satisfying result. They thrust me smack in the middle of a compelling story about true heroes from both America and Italy.

The saga began on February 8, 1985, with Air Force Lieutenant Tim Brown flying what was supposed to be a routine mission from Torrejon, Spain, to the NATO base in Aviano, Italy, in an F16 Fighting Falcon. When a malfunctioning heater caused a flap to freeze, the fighter went into a stall before plummeting to the earth in the foothills of the rugged Dolomite mountains near the village of Limana. Providentially, Brown managed to eject in time, and he parachuted to the ground, dripping blood from a gash on his face incurred during the violent ejection. Brown’s jet crashed into a field, and pieces of it littered a broad area.

Remains of the F16 fighter in the snowy field in Northern Italy.

Brown hiked down the hills, where he picked up some footprints in the snow and followed them to the farmhouse of Ermelinda Dal Farra. She spoke no English, and Brown no Italian, but she took him in, tended to his wounds and alerted the Italian state police, the Carabinieri, along with the fire department, the Vigili del Fuoco. Within a half hour, an ambulance came and transported Brown to the hospital in Belluno, but their brief time together in Dal Farra’s home left a lasting impression on both Tim and Ermelinda.

In the days after his hospital treatment, Brown returned to the scene of the accident with other Air Force officers to review the accident. Tim had brought flowers with him to give to Ermelinda, but she wasn’t home, so he wrote her a nice thank you note and left the flowers.

Tim and I attend the same church in Gig Harbor, and I’ve listened to his fascinating story a couple of times. Each time after ending the tale, Tim expressed regret that he was not able to thank Ermelinda in person. Before Tim’s father passed away, he had encouraged Tim to go back and find the lady who had helped him. Since I speak some Italian and am somewhat familiar with the Veneto region, we even discussed the possibility of me accompanying Tim to revisit the crash scene and visit Ermelinda.

I expressed willingness to do this, but several obstacles stood in the way, the first being that Tim did not know Ermelinda’s name, and he wasn’t even sure of the nearest city. He knew he had been hospitalized in Belluno, though, but would he be able to find the farmhouse again? And then there would be the cost of travel and the logistics. One doesn’t just hop in the car and drive from Gig Harbor to Belluno. It would take considerable planning and coordination.

So, first things first, I told Tim I’d see if I could find the name of the woman who had first given him aid. Tim seemed to doubt that I’d be able to do this—which probably served as a challenge to my investigative reporting skills. I started by doing a search for news of the crash, and I found a few articles online. The crash had happened near the small city of Limana. I looked at the map to see where Limana was, and then I searched for all the newspapers in the region. I sent an email to each newspaper, and within a few days, I received a helpful reply.

Lauredana Marsiglia of Il Gazzettino di Belluno told me she had written an article printed on the front page of her newspaper: “Crashed F16 in 1985: he seeks the woman who helped him.” Marsiglia also said she was asking for information from the Air Club in Belluno. Within two days, not only had Marsiglia found the woman but she had interviewed her and taken a photo of both Ermelinda and her husband (who had not been present on the day of the crash). It turns out that she still had Tim’s thank you note, mounted and hanging on her wall.

Tim’s reacted with surprise and gratitude, emailing me: “Paul, I simply can’t thank you enough for all your work (and to think this all happened in some four days after talking with you in church last Sunday—truly amazing!) I’m grateful to know she’s alive; to have her name and to see the photo of her.  Though I wouldn’t have been able to recognize her at all, that’s my name at the bottom of the note she has, and I know I wrote her. Jem and I need to plan a trip to Italy to meet her and her husband. Thanks again, Paul, I really appreciate everything you’ve done.”

However, the reporter wanted much more. She wanted to be able to make a video of a conversation between Tim and Ermelinda, and that went far beyond what Tim had in mind. He consulted with his old Air Force colleagues and the public affairs officer for the Air Force, and they all discouraged him from doing any kind of public interview. Reluctantly, I told Marsiglia that Tim had only wanted to someday meet privately with Ermelinda, but he wanted no further publicity.

Ermelinda Del Farra still has Tim's note, which she has mounted and keeps hanging on her wall.

However, in the meantime I had also been able to locate Ermelinda on Facebook and establish contact with her. I explained to her that Tim would always remember and be thankful for her kindness, but he was uncomfortable with how public the situation had become. She wrote back: “Good evening Mr. Paul. I was very pleased to hear that our American pilot looked for me. My whole family has always had him in their hearts for that miraculous event. We are always ready to welcome him when he wants. I will introduce you to my children, who also remember him. Now they are grown up, and I am a grandmother of three beautiful grandchildren. I would be very happy to spend time together. He is always welcome.”

And that’s the end of the story, or so I thought. But 2025 marked the 40th anniversary of the incident, and the people of Limana have not forgotten it. Journalist Giovanni Carraro contacted me in December to let me know there would be a special program at city hall on February 8 to memorialize the event. Present would be eye-witnesses and some of the first people to arrive on the crash scene, as well as Ermelinda Dal Farra. A documentary movie with interviews and details would also be shown.

I shared this information with Tim, and after some initial hesitation, he agreed to write a letter to thank Ermelinda and all the people of the community who had assisted him. He also sent a photo of himself and his wife Jem. The letter was translated into Italian and displayed and read at the special event.

This is likely the end of this story, as I believe these events have satisfied the need for both Tim and Ermelinda to find closure (although I would still be happy to accompany Tim if he does want to return to the scene). I received these notes afterwards from the main characters:

Tim: “Thanks so much for sending me the link (to the documentary video). I listened to the whole thing and was able to get a general sense of where the video was going, thanks to your summary. From a personal standpoint and though maybe not perfect, I do have a sense of closure on this event as I can truly say I fulfilled an aspect of my father’s encouragement to me years ago to thank Ermelinda. That wouldn’t have been possible without your help.”

Ermelinda: “Thank you for informing our dear pilot Tim Brown about the anniversary. Forty years have passed, and my family and I have never forgotten that famous evening. Tim, your letter was very emotional both for my family and all the participants. I would have liked to meet you, I hope that one day in private and alone with our families we can meet. It would make us very happy. Thank you, too, Paul Spadoni, for having been the spokesperson.”

Here is a link to the documentary of the crash shown by the journalist Giovanni Carraro February 8, 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iozFe8YTmKI

 

 

 

A message to my grandchildren . . .

What is it like to be a parent and a grandparent? What is the one thing that is most important to a person of my age? I’ll try to explain this by starting with a story about a man name Michele Spadoni and his wife Anita Seghieri, my grandparents—your great great grandparents.

Michele Spadoni, surrounded by his seven children.

Michele was born in 1876 in Pescia, Italy. Michele’s family owned no property. His parents had no home of their own. They farmed other people’s property and had to pay rent in a house that had no indoor plumbing, an outdoor bathroom, no electricity, and was heated only by a fireplace. For their work on the farm, they were able to keep only 50% of the profits. The owner of the land kept the other 50%, even though he didn’t work. It was an unfair system, but for people who didn’t own their own land, it was almost the only option. Kids had to work in the fields with their parents. If they were lucky, they could go to grade school and learn to read, but most of them dropped out of school to help their families survive. One day when Michele was 11, he and his family were working in the fields in San Salvatore, just below Montecarlo. His 7-year-old sister Zelinda was home with their 90-year-old bed-ridden grandmother, and the fire in the fireplace caught the rest of the room on fire. The grandmother was too old to help Zelinda, who was trapped in the burning room. Zelinda was the fourth of Michele’s siblings to die young. Two other sisters and a brother died from illnesses that we would be able to cure today with modern medicine.

Anita Seghieri 

When he was in his 20s, Michele wanted to marry and raise a family of his own. He met and fell in love with an amazing young lady, my grandmother Anita Seghieri, who lived nearby. But he couldn’t marry her, for he had no money, no home, no education, no real occupation except farming. The economy in Italy was among the worst in all of Europe.

But Michele had a few things in his favor. His parents had taught him the value of working hard, and he was willing to do any job. Even though he didn’t have a strong education, he was very smart. And most of all, he was willing to experience new things. He was not afraid of adventure. Michele was 26 years old in 1903, and he had to find some way to make something of his life, some way to earn a living, some way to marry and raise a family. What do you think he did then?

He took a train to a seaport, Genoa, and then boarded a ship to America. The journey took about two weeks, and when he arrived, he had only $9. He spoke absolutely no English. The ship’s log listed his occupation as peasant, but then someone crossed out the word peasant and changed it to laborer. He found work in a steel mill, then as a cook, and then in a brick factory near Eatonville, Washington (see Clay City blog). After five years, he had earned enough money to go back to Italy and marry Anita. Unfortunately, during the five years he worked in America, both his dad and mom died. After the marriage, Michele and Anita went back to America, where he worked in the brick factory for another five years. This time the ship’s log listed his occupation not as peasant or laborer but as operating engineer.

He and Anita lived in a little cabin next to the brick factory. Anita gave birth to two daughters, Nelda and Clara, and was pregnant with a third child. Michele and Anita planned to return to Italy and raise their family there. Anita went back to Italy first with her two daughters (ages 1 and 2), and while there she gave birth to a third daughter, Lola. But she saw that life in San Salvatore had not improved. She was happy to be with her parents, brothers and sisters and cousins again. It was comforting to be able to speak the language and understand the customs of the people around her. But she realized that there would still be no work for her husband, and no future for her children, so she sent a message to Michele: “Italy is where you and I feel most at home, but there is no future for our children here. Stay where you are. I’m coming back to America. It will be our home now.”

1914 was an eventful year for Michele and Anita. They had their fourth child, their first son, whom they named Giulio, but to make his name sound more American, they called him Julius. They also moved to a rented home at the head of the bay in Gig Harbor, Washington, and Michele started work at a metal refining company in Tacoma. He took a ferry to work, since there were few roads and no bridge connecting Gig Harbor to Tacoma. Sometimes he would stay in Tacoma for the entire work week and only come home on weekends. They bought property in Shore Acres, on the south end of Gig Harbor, and built their first house. They had three more boys, Roy (1915), Claude (1918) and Rudolph (1921).

Michele on his farm during
his latter years.

At the end of World War 2, the three of the boys, now young men, started their own business clearing land, making roads and delivering coal and fuel oil. The fourth brother joined the business in later years. Almost all their sons and their nephews worked for the company, which was called Spadoni Brothers. Julius was the eldest brother and the head of the company, but these brothers loved each other and made most decisions by consensus. Like their father Michele, they were honest, hardworking and intelligent, and their business was a huge success.

Julius was my father, and he was one of the most amazing men I’ve ever known. Before he started Spadoni Brothers, he worked as a logger and then a welder. He built his own house. He could repair his own cars. He had a strong faith in God, and he took his children to church every Sunday. He was a fine example of what a man should be.  I never once saw him get angry or raise his voice (although he told me that he sometimes did get angry when he was younger). He and his brothers and sisters helped many people in need. One time I stopped to help some people pull their car out of a ditch. I hadn’t told them my name, but afterwards they said, “You must be a Spadoni.” I don’t know how they knew that, but I like to think it was because that’s what all the members of the Spadoni family in Gig Harbor did—they helped people in need without asking for anything in return.

My mom taught kindergarten in our home so that she could be at home with her children and still contribute to the family income. Later, when all her children were in school, she took a job as a first-grade teacher. She inspired in me a love for reading, and I give her credit for teaching me to be a writer.

I don’t really know if my parents and grandparents look down from heaven to see how I’m doing today. Maybe they do, or maybe they’re too busy with whatever work God has given them to do in heaven, but it is my strong hope that they are proud of me. I want them to know that I appreciate all the sacrifices they made so that I could have a good education, a good job, a home of my own and a happy family. I also appreciate that they taught me to love God, they taught me kindness, honesty, the value of hard work, and the importance of getting a good education.

I think they would be terribly disappointed if I turned out to be lazy, or dishonest, or selfish, or cruel. Or if I took all the education they provided for me and wasted it by living foolishly. Or if I sold all the property I inherited and wasted the money on fleeting pleasures.

I wish my parents and grandparents had lived long enough to see what a successful career I had as a teacher, to see the awards we won for the newspaper, yearbook and literary arts magazine, to see that I wrote two books, to see that I was named journalism teacher of the year and career and technical education teacher of the year in the state of Washington.

And even more than that, to see that I’ve had a long, loving and successful marriage to an amazing woman, and to see the four amazing children that my wife and I brought up. My parents and grandparents centered all their efforts on their families, and it paid off. I believe they would look back on all the sacrifices they made and say it was all worthwhile.

And now I’m no longer the child but instead the grandfather, and the greatest reward for me is to glory in the successes of my children and grandchildren. I too made a lot of sacrifices, working at multiple jobs throughout my life, many of them at the same time. I’ve been a laborer, a dishwasher, a truck driver, a logger, a photographer, a graphic designer, a journalist, an author, a landlord and a business owner. By working so hard during my younger years, I’m now able to enjoy leisure time with my family. Nothing gives me greater pleasure or satisfaction than seeing that my children and grandchildren are happy and are forming habits that will make them experience the same successes that I’ve enjoyed. My children are already there—they are well established in successful and fulfilling careers. They are honest, hard-working, kind and loving. As for my grandchildren, it’s too early to know what kind of lives they will lead. Will they also grow up to be honest, hard-working, kind and loving? I fervently pray that they will. Nothing could make me happier than to see them become like their own wonderful parents.

I hope that my grandchildren, as they grow into adulthood, will also want to make their parents and grandparents proud. I hope they will be grateful for the loving way they are being raised by their parents, and that they will repay this devotion by embracing the values of their parents.

To my kids and grandkids, I say that you never, ever need to give me a gift for Christmas, my birthday or Father’s Day. That’s because the most priceless gift you can give me is to live a life that will make me proud. If you do that, it will assure me that my own life, and the lives of my parents and grandparents, have been worthwhile.