Career Confidence

8Learned Behavior: Timmy Gianni—April 4, 1957–April 4, 1963

Little Timmy Gianni is buried at our local hometown cemetery.

During the summers, my sister and I spent a lot of time with my grandfather at our local church cemetery. Grandpa went every week to clean the graves, plant flowers, water the plants, and make sure the graves of his siblings, parents, and cousins were all in tip-top shape. My sister and I would go to the old-fashioned well to pump water and drag buckets back to the gravesites of at least 20 or so relatives so they could be watered and cleaned.

I don't know if anyone does this kind of thing anymore, but I have great memories of sunny Saturday mornings planting flowers, talking to my deceased great-grandparents, and strolling around the cemetery, daydreaming about the lives of the people whose names were carved on the tombstones, where they came from, why they died, and who were the people buried on either side of them with the same last names.

My grandpa would point out the young soldiers he knew who perished in WWII, and would tell tales about who was the funniest, the bravest, the ones who left behind wives and kids, the ones who died during their first mission, and the ones who fought bravely and returned home, dying of old age many years later.

He told endless stories about our cousins, aunts, and uncles. My grandma, his wife, was one of 14 children, and one day we found her two little siblings, one boy and one girl, a toddler and an infant, who died ...