This past September, my grandfather turned 95.

95.

When he was only 16 he left his mother, father, and 3 sisters to move to America with his brother for a better life and was was hopeful for what he would find.  They landed in Niagara Falls, NY, a stones throw from the Canadian border, and bought a three family, yellow brick house so close to the Niagara River, you can feel the mist on your face. A few years later, he brought my grandmother, his new wife, over and they settled into that same house, making it their home for the last 67 years.  Every year since, in his backyard, he grew a garden that he has managed to maintain with meticulous care.   He somehow managed to fit tomatoes, broccoli, green beans, oregano, and even a fig tree that grew at a 45 degree angle from being buried each winter to preserve it. Recently, I asked my grandfather how he knew how to garden assuming he’d say he was born with a green thumb.  But instead, he told me how when he started, he didn’t know anything about gardening and relied on his brother and the friends he had made here to help him learn.  There were times when he was successful and times when the garden didn’t grow, but he tended to it with such care that eventually he learned how to make it flourish.

As long as I’ve known him, my grandfather has always been my grandfather; the head of my mother’s family, and it’s easy to forget that at one time, he probably felt as clueless and uncertain about growing his garden as he did about being a parent or a grandparent.  But here he is, so many years later, with, what most would consider, a large family that has flourished and grown under his lead.

In August, I finally convinced my grandfather to sit still long enough to let me take pictures of him and little Dominic, our Nico, one of his eight great-grandchildren.  Nonno picked him up from ground and carried him across the room and announced in a big jolly laugh that Nico weighed as much as a watermelon.

I’ve taking thousands of photos and gone on tons of shoots, but these pictures of Nonno and his little watermelon, may be my favorites.