Cimelio

Where We Honor Our Ancestors

I grew up on Long Island in a town called Brentwood. Brentwood has recently become the topic of conversation in national discourse because a few years ago, Donald Trump made a speech about gang violence, highlighting the number of crimes that had been committed there that were connected to MS-13. I say this part because where I grew up, everyone was super proud to display patriotism for their ancestral heritage. I remember being able to identify the Salvadorian, Honduran, or Puerto Rican flag because of frequently seeing it on my peers in the hallway of my middle school. 

I was assigned a group project, and one of the group members called my house (this was, of course, before cell phones, when we had a phone alcove in our kitchen for our landline) during Sunday dinner. I told her I had to call her back later because we were eating dinner. My grandfather, whom many of my cousins called Nonno, was over, so we did the whole spread at 3 pm. Italian Americans are not a monolith, but I do know that going to mass in the morning followed by an early dinner in the afternoon is a big part of Italian culture. Hell, even Jersey Shore had its own variation on Sunday dinner. That’s when I realized I had an ancestral heritage too. 

Cimelio means heirloom in Italian. It’s usually combined with di Famiglia, or family heirloom. When I created it, I wanted to honor those Italian ancestors. I thought of family stories about my grandfather and great-grandparents, their immigrant journey separated by two different continents during World War Two, with little ability to communicate. My great-grandfather immigrated before the war, but was unable to bring his family over once Mussolini rose to power. He couldn’t bring his family, but my family’s legend says that he brought over a cutting of a fig tree from the land that had housed generations of my family for centuries. At least two of my uncles have trees that are descended from this fig tree. My father killed his. 

But what I love about Cimelio is what it has done for me since it was launched. I always figured the fig tree in a pocket story was unique to my ancestors. A legend that only my family shared. I have been proven wrong repeatedly. I’ve met several people who all have a similar story. Their grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-uncle once removed all brought over a fig tree. At first, I thought we might be related, but some weren’t even from Sicily, where my family hails from. We all have this collective fig legend to pair nicely with Sunday dinner in the afternoon.