The Compass of Eternal Love: A Year-End Reflection

There's a particular quality to December light—the way it slants low through bare branches, casting long shadows that seem to stretch backward into all the days we've lived. It's fitting, perhaps, that as one year closes and another waits in the wings, we find ourselves naturally turning inward, taking stock, measuring the distance traveled. But in all this accounting of goals met and missed, of victories and defeats, we sometimes overlook the most fundamental ledger: the one that tracks who has loved us, and who we have loved in return.

Indulge me.  Watch this video before continuing to read.

I was talking with my friend, Lisa, who is one of my sisters from another mother.  I am an only child, but I have quite a number of sisters and brothers that have no blood relationship.   Family, after all, is made from connections that blossom.  We were speaking about our parents who have passed and we started talking about grandparents.   Maybe that is what primed me for my experience the next day. 

I watched a video by a woman in Naples, Italy.  This is a thing for me.  I consume videos in English, Italian, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Spanish, French and Portuguese – especially when they have to do with cooking and baking.  Do I understand them?  Absolutely if in English or Spanish.   Mostly, in Italian or Neapolitan.  Fifty percent or more if in the other languages.  But, I digress.  This was a straightforward but enthusiastic video for making “pizza scarola” (escarole pie).   I can taste it now, in my mind and on my imaginative tongue.

I watched her make 2 versions, while she spoke about how generations in her family were “pizziaolos” (pizza makers), the recipes were passed down through the family and the importance of not forgetting traditions, and realized that I had not made a pizza scarola in way too long of a time. I smiled, and then the tears welled in my eyes.   It was the slice she cut and held up.  I saw my paternal grandmother in that slice.   This was frequently a Sunday treat that she made.  Sundays would always include rice balls (Neapolitan style, made with egg yolks, parmigiano cheese and a bit heavy on the black pepper, rolled in breadcrumbs and fried golden brown), fried chicken (floured, no breadcrumbs) and pizza scarola every 3 weeks or so.  My grandmother passed away in 1987. 

If alive, she would be 126.   She had a tough life until midlife.    She could not read or write, other than signing her name.   She spoke English quite well, without an accent, Neapolitan, and understood Spanish.  She could not do math.   Her childhood, into pre-teens, was spent caring for her very ill mother – school be damned.  It was a blessing and curse she carried inside of her, when she remembered.  In her final years, when she endured pain, her mother would always be the first person she loudly called, “Che dulore! Ouey, ma!  Ouey MAAA! Nun mme fa' cchiù!” (Neapolitan for “What pain!  Hey, MAAA! Don’t do it to me anymore”, in reference to the pain.)

I can talk about my grandmother anytime, without “feelings”, because I healed decades ago. She was my 2nd mother, out of 5 (my mother, grandmother, 2 aunts and an aunt/godmother – and that isn’t counting the mothers of friends, who were like mothers to me – because caring about people was and still is a big deal).  Being an only child, nothing bad was allowed to happen to me.  Yes, it was excessive.  If you’re an only child, you know.  I spent 28 years of my life in the same Brooklyn, NY apartment building either one floor below or right next door to my paternal grandparents.  They owned the 4-apartment building.  All residents were family.  I spent a ton of time with my grandparents, especially my grandmother.  When she died, my world crumbled.  It’s been decades.  Time heals. But, that damn slice of pizza scarola reopened the loss in my heart.

Let’s talk about the word "eternal." We use it so cavalierly—eternal love, eternal gratitude, eternal rest—as if we truly understand what it means to step outside of time. But there's a version of eternity that lives right here, in the mortal world, in the stubborn persistence of certain kinds of love. The parent who still worries when you don't call back quickly enough. The friend who knows your coffee order and your deepest fears in equal measure. The partner whose hand you reach for in the dark. The mentor whose voice echoes in your head years after you've stopped needing their advice. These loves don't transcend time; they accumulate it, layer by layer, building something so solid that it begins to feel permanent, unshakeable, eternal in its own right.  Don’t get me wrong, that stuff cuts both ways.  Love is one way.  Trauma is another.  We all experience the full spectrum from different people, even when they mean well.  But this essay isn’t about the trauma.  It is about love.

When we reflect on those who have loved us eternally—or as close to eternally as humans can manage—we're not just indulging in nostalgia. We're doing something more essential: we're remembering who we are. We are, after all, the sum of the loves we've received. Every encouraging word that made us brave enough to try. Every sacrifice that cleared a path we didn't know we needed. Every moment someone chose to stay when leaving would have been easier. These aren't just memories; they're the architecture of our character, the foundation upon which everything else is built.

And yet, how easy it is to take this for granted. We get busy. We get distracted. We start to believe that we are self-made, that our successes are ours alone, that we've gotten where we are through sheer force of will. It's a seductive story, but it's a lie. Behind every one of us stands a small army of people who loved us enough to help us become ourselves. Year's end is the time to turn around and look at them—really look—and let ourselves feel the full weight of what they've given us.

This kind of reflection isn't maudlin or sentimental. It's strategic. It's a compass reading. Because if you want to know where you're going, you have to understand where you've been and who brought you there. The people who have loved us eternally are more than just figures in our past; they're signposts pointing toward our future. Their love teaches us what matters, what endures, what's worth fighting for. When we reflect on them, we're not looking backward—we're calibrating forward.

I think about my own life and the people whose love has been the one constant through all the variables. They haven't always been perfect. Neither have I. In fact, some of the memories can re-ignite feelings of hurt or anger, because people who love each other are really, really skilled at pissing each other off. (We know each other’s buttons and when to push them, right?) But these people with their eternal love, they've been there—present, persistent, impossibly patient. And I realize that their love has been a kind of faith, a belief in who I could become even when I couldn't see it myself. Even the  advice that was  given to me three times per week for almost 3 decades by my grandmother:  

My grandmother:

“Giuseppe! O nonno, siente a me. (Joseph, grandson, listen to me. Note:  Nonno was used as a term of endearment, rather than “nepote mio”) Save a dollar.  When you make $10, you make believe you made $5 and you put the $5 away.”

An uncle or my father, if present:

“Leave the kid alone!   How many times ya’ gotta them him that?”

My grandmother:“Ah, shaddupuh!!!  He’s gotta know.  Listen to me.  I saved $5.  The old man (my grandfather) didn’t know.  I didn’t tell him.   Then, when we needed the money, we didn’t have to ask nobody.   And remember, nobody needs to know your business.  No tell nobody nothing!  Capsisce? (Understand?)” 

Me:

“Yes, grandma.”Her:“OK.”

Do you think I saved a dollar?  You know I did.  But, I still had lots to learn.That faith of those who love us becomes a responsibility. Not a burden, but a call to action. To live in a way that honors what they've invested. To love others with the same steadfastness. To pass it forward.  Did you get those last two sentences?  “To love others with the same steadfastness. To pass it forward.”

As we stand on the threshold of a new year, facing all its unknowns and uncertainties, we need anchors. We need to know what's real, what's solid, what won't shift beneath our feet when everything else does. Eternal love—the kind that accumulates over years, that survives disagreements and distance, that chooses you again and again—is that anchor. And gratitude for it is the chain that keeps us tethered to what matters most.

So here's my invitation as this year closes: Take an hour. Maybe less. Sit with the names and faces of those who have loved you without condition or expiration date. Let yourself feel it—the specific gravity of their care, the miracle of their presence in your life. Write them a letter you may never send. Say their names out loud. Thank them, even if only in your heart.

And then, carry that gratitude into the new year like a torch. Let it light your path forward. Let it remind you, when things get hard, that you are not alone and never have been. Let it shape your choices, inform your priorities, guide your steps. Because the people who love us eternally don't just give us a past worth remembering—they give us a future worth living up to.

The light slants low through bare branches. The year turns. And we turn with it, grateful, humbled, and ready to begin again.

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Oh, do you want to see the video that started all of this?   Here it is.   It shows two versions of pizza scarola.  One has escarole, pine nuts and olives, while the other has escarole and sausage.  Darn, I should have gone shopping before writing this.   I’m putting escarole on my grocery list.

By Democracy Is Us Council Member, Joe Castagliola