Hello dear friends,

Today I am pleased to host the post of Talia at RedHotInk aka my partner in crime for the series of “USA The Good The Bad The Quirky” AND my Photoshop fairy godmother.

Talia is an incredible young woman currently studying in New York but coming from the gorgeous city of Firenze. We hit it up on Goodreads and I love working with her as it flows effortlessly.

She wrote a very personal and inspiring post about her grandparents and the love they have for each other.

Thank you so much Talia for all that you did and do!

Enjoy

There is a type of parrot that in Italian we call “gli inseparabili”. It means, the inseparables. They are bought and sold in couples, as pets, because without their mate all they do is screech and make the most annoying and godawful of sounds.

Even together, they are not exactly peaceful. The bicker and tease each other a lot, and are often compared to an old married couple, which brings me to today’s topic. To my favorite old, married, couple: my grandparents.

What they share is so rare I have hardly seen it in young couples, let alone those who had to endure a whole life together. And yet, every day they seem to be even more in love than the previous one.

And since it’s midnight here this is my fourth attempt to giving structure to this post, what I’ll do is just giving your snapshots of moments when their love for each other really turned me into goo. I’m being serious. They are disgusting. I’d give my life for them.

So here it starts, the virtual gallery of Anna and Michele, a not so modern fairytale. #relationshipgoals

• Once we were having lunch at their house, just the three of use since I used to spend every summer at their place for three solid months. They were bickering over something, probably the food. My grandpa is not a picky eater, but he likes his food to be cooked in a certain way, with attention to details, so to speak. And my grandma was teasing him back about his habits, getting exasperated by his nitpicky-ness. That’s when it happened. She was still huffing and puffing when my grandpa’s lips slowly unfurled in the most loving of smiles, he looked at me and said: “God, do I love this woman.” Then he grabbed her chin and planted a kiss on her lips. And that was not a single episode. He’d just outright say it in the middle of random conversations, and especially when they are disagreeing on something and she is trying to make him see reason.
• So, my grandpa isn’t a swimmer. It’s been said he once dived in the sea in the 80s, but sources still need to confirm the intel. My grandma instead still goes to the swimming pool now that she’s in her 70s. Well, during the summer, my grandpa will stand, under the sun, sometimes even for an hour, just to make sure she doesn’t get a congestion, or a stroke, and drown. When I’m around, I go in with my grandma and am trusted with the guard-keeping, but in my absence? He’ll just stand there for as long as it takes, arms crossed over his chest, trusty baseball cap on his bald head and eyes narrowed down on her, even hundreds of meters away.
• They still do nice things for each other. Every time the car is parked far away, my grandpa will leave alone, in rain, snow, or stifling hotness, to get the car and not have my grandma have to brave the elements. And do we want to even breach the umbrella topic? The man literally opens her door and shield her from the rain when the weather is being moody. My grandma is not any less caring. When he’s sitting watching soccer or formula 1, she brings him treats, water ecc. Same thing he does with her pills, since he’s an hypochondriac and there’s no way the love of his life is skipping even one day of her pills.
• A couple years during out birthday party (all three of us are born around the same time in September), I caught them looking at each other in the sweetest way. They were basically making googly eyes at each other. I even took a picture and I wish I could share it, but I cannot find it in my phone. Anyway, my grandfather had been laying down on a wicker chair and my grandma had sauntered off to spend some time with him. He’d grabber her hand, tilted his head, and they smiled at each other in a way that was so self-satisfying I almost felt like I was intruding.
• If anything of a couple looks better, that piece is going to my grandma, while my grandfather chooses the less precious one. This goes for seating preferences, food… everything. He would give her the world, and she spoils and treats him like a queen.

I could come up with a thousand more things that make them such an incredible couple. When my grandpa had heart surgery in a city quite close to Florence, my grandma still preferred to take a room in that town to be closer to him, rather than staying with us. They are a single package. You see so many married couples nowadays that are together more for necessity than love, who are always whining about the other, or that cannot stop fighting, but these two are a package deal. Where one is, the other isn’t far away.

And it’s looking at them, at the pure simplicity of their match, that I cross my fingers, hoping to find something even half as good as what they have. I don’t need someone to rescue me from flames, or a billionaire to shower me with gifts, or someone who will sweep me off my feet with romantic gestures. Looking at them, I realize that respect and adorations permeate the small things in their lives. With everything they do for the other. The thoughtfulness, putting the other’s happiness in front of their own. For me, that is love. And it’s been an honor to witness it.

I cannot envision them separate, and their devotion to each other is so all-encompassing that I often find myself thinking of them as gli inseparabili. I don’t even want to think of what will be left of the other when the first will pass away, but if there’s any justice in this universe, wherever they will end up afterwards, they will be together.

Talia @redhotink

Talia is a 22 year old bookworm who is currently chasing her dream of becoming a forensic psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in New York. Originally, she is from Florence, Italy, where she lived all her life up until two months ago and with the exception of a semester of debauchery in Denmark (just kidding 😉). Only child of two musicians, she has also a diploma in flute, although she’d rather play the guitar to decompress. She started reading romance novels at the ripe age of 15, when the Night Huntress series came knocking on her door and demanded entrance in her heart. From there it was a slippery slope to the addiction it has now become (not that she regrets anything!). She (how weird is it to write about yourself in third person?! However…) also dedicated herself to writing, in both Italian and English, but hasn’t published anything because her perfectionism won’t let her. At the moment, she moonlights as a stripper in Las Ve… wait, no, as a graphic designer for indie authors.

Find Talia at:

Blog: https://redhotink.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TaliaRedHotInk/

Who is a model for your love life?

Thank you for reading!

Sophie