Our dear Mirio passed away Monday night. The funeral was Wednesday in the tiny church of S. Carlo here in Capriglia. Jonathan and I sat on the back row between Nonno and Ugo.

And so now Nonno is alone. The church was full up to standing room only and many people also waited outside and Nonno was kissed by many, many people whose names I don't know and who are not part of my little world. And then afterwards, we went to the pub to raise a glass to Mirio and Lucia sat next to Nonno and talked with him about many things other than death. Guglielmo was there and Geppolino and Almo, Valerio, Claudio, Ilario, and others. But that doesn't change anything. When you've had a brother for 88 years and you've been so close through so much, like Nonno and Mirio had been, to lose that brother is now to be always a little bit alone. 

There were three years difference in age between Nonno and Mirio -- just like there are between Aiden and Tris. And for all of the many mistakes that I have made as a parent, one thing I got right was giving them each other and their friendship, their brotherhood.

And so at the end of the funeral, as the flower-covered casket that held Mirio's body came back down the aisle of the church to go back into the hearse and then off to the crematorium, Nonno -- who had even cracked a joke or two before the service started and who had whispered to me that he rated the preist's eulogy only "so-so" -- reached out as the casket passed him and touched it with the final brief caress of a big brother to the younger brother he had always tried to take care of -- the younger brother who had known him longer than any other person in the world.

 And so for all the love that I am so glad that my sons have for each other, that one moment of Nonno reaching out to gently touch the final remains of his brother and then to be without him from then on was a picture of the future that my sons are fated to have. Someday, one of them will lose the other.

And I have a brother that I love, too. Someday one of us will be left without anyone else in the world who remembers our childhood. Our future is not infinite and so we pay a steep price for love.

Renata has returned. She came back from Poland on Monday and we saw her Tuesday when we all sat together in mourning and then again at the funeral and after it. It was a subdued reunion, under the circumstances, but we are happy to have her back again, especially Nonno, who needs her now.

Without Mirio to play, the boys at the pub are having a hard time consistently finding four players for cards. Almo, who was trained as a sculptor by Mirio, plays -- as he always did. He went down to town and bought the newspaper for Nonno. It had a story about Mirio's passing in it and Almo brought it back for Nonno and found the right page for him, the one with the story, and then I saw that Almo's eyes had gotten misty and he drank his glass of wine with great attention for a while.