What I Didn't Do

In 1979 the company I worked for offered me the opportunity to spend a year in northwest Italy, consulting to the Italian company Olivetti about how to build a computer network they were committed to deliver. After discussing the idea with my wife Kathy, we rented our home in Massachusetts and at the beginning of August we moved to Ivrea Italy with our 7-year-old daughter and 15-month-old son. By mid-September we were settled in a small apartment, and our daughter Heather was enrolled in second grade in an Italian school.

Although I enjoyed my job, life was difficult for Kathy. Heather attended school 6 mornings a week from 8 to 12:30, so there was never enough time for Kathy to get out of our small town and go to Turin or Milan, the nearby cities. There was an energy crisis in Italy so building heat was only allowed to be on 14 hours a day; in our building the heat was off from 10am to 4pm (as well as midnight to 4am) so the apartment was cold during the day. Our son Andy had a bad reaction to something in the Italian milk which caused him to cry – even scream – during much of the night, and it took us 5 months to figure out that milk was the problem.

Food was very good, but it was sold without preservatives, and our refrigerator was tiny. Kathy had to shop almost every day, and this required visiting a lot of shops: the butcher, the baker, the dairy shop, the fruit and vegetable shop, the chicken and egg shop, the pasta maker, the cheese vendor, the deli, and the wine store. Additionally, trips to the supermarket for bottled juice and mineral water, diapers, and staples such as sugar and flour were required weekly. For the women of Ivrea, neighborhood shopping was a social occasion, providing an opportunity to exchange local news. For Kathy, waiting in line for her turn and trying to keep Andy peaceful while the women ahead of her chatted, shopping was a nightmare. And the Italians didn't believe women belonged in banks – whenever Kathy had to do business with the bank she was ignored for 10 to 30 minutes before any of the employees would help her.

Kathy had two sisters, 6 and 12 years younger than she was. Because of their age difference, Kathy was partly like a mother to Josie, the youngest. Josie, with encouragement from Kathy, was the first member of the family to receive a college degree. She was married in 1976 and became pregnant in the early summer of 1979, just a bit before we moved to Ivrea. At the beginning of November Josie was killed by a drunk driver. Kathy was, of course, devastated. We went to Massachusetts for the funeral and then returned to Italy. Kathy sank deep into a depressed state and was barely able to function. In addition to grieving for her sister she felt terribly isolated from her mother, other sister, and friends at home. Telephone contact was close to impossible, and the Italian postal system was unreliable.

What I didn't do was to talk with her about the possibility of returning to the US. I was enjoying life in Italy, and I was afraid that if I suggested the possibility of return Kathy would jump at it. I justified my inaction with the belief that if Kathy really wanted to go back to the US she could bring the idea up. In hindsight (and with the considerable help of therapy) I see she was too lost in her misery to suggest such a major change on her own. Would it have helped? Who knows. But for the past 25 years I've regretted my selfishness.

Written as an assignment for the writers' group at The Fountains in July 2014.  The assignment was to write on the topic "What I didn't do".