True Romance

Nothing has inspired me to blog in recent weeks, so I thought I’d share this sweet tale of  true love. It’s a true story of what happened to a friend of mine a few days ago.  Although she gave me permission to share it, I’m going to use fictional names.  Not that you’d know these people…  So here it is:

For the first 7 years of her life, Gianna grew up in Italy, in a small village.  For as long as she could remember, a boy named Dante was her closest friend. They did everything together.  At age 7, she moved to the United States with her family, but Gianna and Dante stayed in touch through letters.  For 3 months every summer, she went back to Italy and they were inseparable.   At age 11, Gianna and her family moved back to Italy and to the hometown she shared with Dante.  From ages 11 to 17, Gianna and Dante were a couple, totally in love, best friends.  At age 17, she had to move back to the U.S. with her family again and settled in the Boston area. 

She’s 27 now and for the past 10 years, she has returned to Italy and every summer and reconnected with Dante, but it was no longer possible to maintain such a long distance relationship as adults.  Their love never wavered, but they knew that they wanted the other to be happy in life and that might mean a spouse in the country where each lived.  Dante always said he wanted to come to America for Gianna, but he could never make it happen due to family and work obligations in Italy. 

A few years ago, Gianna got serious with a boyfriend here in the U.S. She accepted his marriage proposal.  But in the middle of the engagement, she broke it off because she knew she didn’t love him the way she loved Dante, even though she and Dante couldn’t be together.  They were supposed to be married this past October.  Since then, Gianna has been pretty down in the dumps.  She knew she made the right decision not to get married.  But throughout her relationship and engagement to the ex-fiance, she hadn’t returned to Italy at all.  Now it’s been 2 years since she’s been back there and hasn’t seen Dante in all that time.  She’s single now, and trying to make a nice life for herself here.  She moved out of a place that she shared with a crummy roommate.  She got a promotion at work.  She’s getting her brand new apartment ready to move into this weekend, a fresh start.

Gianna has a set of godparents that have known her all her life.  They emigrated with Gianna’s parents from Italy to the Boston area 10 years ago.  They live in the same town as her parents do and Gianna sees them almost every weekend.  Every year at Christmas, her godfather surprises her with some kind of fabulous gift.  The other night, her godparents showed up at her job.  Her godfather gave her a huge hug as usual, but he put her in such a headlock that she couldn’t see anything.  

He said, “You know how I always give you a great gift for Christmas? Well, I don’t know how I’m going to top this gift next time…”  

He covered her eyes tightly and Gianna got all excited, saying “it’s a 52” HD TV right?! It’s the t.v., right?!!!”.

Then he switches hands but keeps her eyes tightly covered.  Except the 2^nd hand that now covers her eyes isn’t his and Gianna realizes it immediately.  She knows this hand, she can smell the skin of this hand .  It’s Dante’s hand.  Dante flew to the U.S. for the first time that day from Italy and Gianna’s godparents brought him to her.  They haven’t seen each other for 2 years.  Once Gianna realizes it, she literally drops to the floor and Dante tries to hold her up.  And her godparents got it all on film.

Dante has a 1 month visa that can keep him here through January, but he can extend it to 3 months I think.  They want to finally be together forever and he has left everything in Italy to be with her. Dante speaks no English (Gianna is bilingual of course).  I have never seen a girl so happy in her life.  Is that not a great story, or what?!