My mother died on Easter Sunday.

She’d been in a nursing home on Cape Cod for about a year…a very difficult year, as you can imagine.

Thanks to my niece, I was able to see my mother on Skype and Facetime during her last few days.

On Saturday, in a moment of lucidity, she told Stefano and me, in Italian: “nessuno dovrebbe soffrire in questo modo. Voglio volare via,” which means, “nobody should suffer like this. I want to fly away.” I told her to let go.

Unlike previous times, our last Skype sessions were mostly silent. She didn’t have the strength to talk or even to pay much attention to whatever I was talking about. So I ended up just watching her…in silence…

On Sunday there was a change for the worse: she was having a very hard time breathing. Very difficult to watch.

But the last memory I have of my mother is of her blowing me a kiss through the phone…

Six hours later, she was gone.

No more suffering…

Ciao, mamma.