One may not be able to live in the past but by going back to where your ancestors came from you can evoke it in ways that will stay with you forever. In the case of my family, both sides had emigrated from small Italian hill towns in the late 19th century—my father’s side from Abruzzo, my mother’s from Campania—at a time when leaving Italy was an option only after transAtlantic ocean travel became possible after centuries when it would have been unimaginable.

All of my immigrant ancestors fully realized the American Dream, but never forgot, nor freed themselves from, a longing for the places they and their forebears had dwelled for so many centuries. When, after many years, they could afford to return, they did so and were welcomed back by family members who had stayed behind.