Life, Lessons & Legacy: How Caring For My Grandmother Changed My World

By Clelia G. Pergola

If there's one thing Clelia Pergola knows now for sure is that a strong value system is the foundation of a rich and productive life. Advocacy. Authenticity. Legacy. These principles are the foundation of her inner checklist and are the criteria that inform all her actions.

Being part of a family with strong ties, it would seem that these values have always been her tiller. And at some level, they were. But it wasn't until her cherished Nonna Lidia died and following her time of grieving that they became more intentional.

Life, Lessons, & Legacy is the story of Clelia's odyssey of self-discovery in the years following her grandmother Nonna Lidia's death. While Clelia went through all the motions of a normal life and strived to project strength to those around her, internally, she was experiencing tremendous self-doubt. In reality, at many times, she was overtaken by self-recrimination about some of the decisions she had made about Nonna's care during the years when Nonna's dementia and physical atrophy were reaching new heights.

As Clelia's story shows us, no journey that helps us gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose and place in the world is ever without pain or missteps. Although no passage of self-discovery is ever truly over, Clelia's journey got her to a better place. She gained a clearer understanding about herself and her family and her relationships with them. This understanding grounded her and made her more self-accepting and aware that not getting everything just right is always part of the process. She also discovered that everything she was ever looking for had been there to guide her all along.

Life, Lessons, & Legacy. is a story of hope. Especially during our current turbulent times, this memoir shows us that the simplest values of family, service, and concern for others are what the world needs right now. And, on a more personal level, Life. Lessons. Legacy shows us that heartaches can be beautiful and troubles that grow out of love make us who we are.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667803678

Book preview

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Dedication

To my Nonna Lidia Amelia Bilotto and Domenico Barone who loved me like their own daughter. Thank you for teaching me the meaning of life, love, and loss so that our family story can help others who are suffering. Your story will be forever told, and your legacy will live far past the time you were with us on this earth. - Cleluccia

If there’s one thing Clelia Pergola knows now for sure is that a strong value system is the foundation of a rich and productive life. Advocacy. Authenticity. Legacy. These principles are the foundation of her inner checklist and are the criteria that inform all her actions.

Being part of a family with strong ties, it would seem that these values have always been her tiller. And at some level, they were. But it wasn’t until her cherished Nonna Lidia died and following her time of grieving that they became more intentional.

Life, Lessons, & Legacy is the story of Clelia’s odyssey of self-discovery in the years following her grandmother Nonna Lidia’s death. While Clelia went through all the motions of a normal life and strived to project strength to those around her, internally, she was experiencing tremendous self-doubt. In reality, at many times, she was overtaken by self-recrimination about some of the decisions she had made about Nonna’s care during the years when Nonna’s dementia and physical atrophy were reaching new heights.

As Clelia’s story shows us, no journey that helps us gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose and place in the world is ever without pain or missteps. Although no passage of self-discovery is ever truly over, Clelia’s journey got her to a better place. She gained a clearer understanding about herself and her family and her relationships with them. This understanding grounded her and made her more self-accepting and aware that not getting everything just right is always part of the process. She also discovered that everything she was ever looking for had been there to guide her all along.

Life, Lessons, & Legacy is a story of hope. Especially during our current turbulent times, this memoir shows us that the simplest values of family, service, and concern for others are what the world needs right now. And, on a more personal level, Life. Lessons. Legacy shows us that heartaches can be beautiful and troubles that grow out of love make us who we are.

Life, Lessons & Legacy

How Caring For My Grandmother Changed My World

©2021 Clelia G. Pergola

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

print ISBN: 978-1-66780-366-1

ebook ISBN: 978-1-66780-367-8

Contents

PREFACE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chapter 1. If Mom Says No, Ask Nonna

Chapter 2. Legacy: Our Dreams for the Future, Allegiance to Our Past

Chapter 3. Living Your Truth: That Which Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Stronger

Chapter 4. The Warrior: No One Ever Asked Me if I Could Do This Job?!

Chapter 5. I’m Different and That Still Works

Chapter 6. People Power: It Does Take a Village

Chapter 7. Fierce Conversations: Tough Talk Gets to Truth

Chapter 8. Even Death Has a Heart

Chapter 9. Fail Forward

Chapter 10. Massages, Botox, and Shopping

Chapter 11. Che Sara Sara

Chapter 12. To Give Is To Live a Purposeful Life

Chapter 13. Life, Lessons, & Legacy

PREFACE

My girl, Clelia! She is a grown woman, a loving wife and mother, dedicated daughter, and niece, and a successful professional. Yet, to me, she is still my girl.

When Clelia announced that she wanted to create a Barone family memoir, I had no doubt that she could do it, because she follows through on every endeavor, she sets out to undertake. It would be a book, she said, that would focus on her Nonna, my mother, Nonna Lidia, and how she taught Clelia, my sister Marisa, my brother Frankie, and me so much about life, love, and family.

Nonna definitely held our family together. And because she was always home as women of her generation were, she was consistently there as Clelia grew up. She really was a surrogate mother to my daughter. This allowed me to better myself and pursue education and a career, which were necessary to support our single-parent family. I have so much gratitude for my mother, who went above and beyond to keep our family on its feet after my first husband, Clelia’s father, left. My mother, Clelia’s Nonna, truly was the anchor for our family.

When Nonna died, Clelia’s world fell apart. There were times, I would visit her and worry terribly about her mental and physical state. Yet somehow deep down I knew that Clelia had inherited my mother’s strength and that she would find her footing and come out an even stronger woman.

Indeed, she did. In Life, Lessons, & Legacy she pays well-deserved tribute to my mother, her Nonna, and to our Barone family. My sister, brother, and I are indebted to Clelia for writing about Nonna and the strong family values she role modeled for us. We hope you can identify with some of the feelings and ideas expressed in the pages that follow, recognize that oftentimes growth comes with pain, and that like Clelia, you will come out on the other side of sorrow stronger, grounded, and ready to live with meaning and purpose.

To your good life,

- Olga Barone Allan

August 2021

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Clelia Pergola considers herself a very lucky woman. Clelia has combined strong family values, her understanding of what it takes to be a great leader, and her commitment to helping others and made them the hallmarks of her life and career. Each day, family, people with whom she comes into contact, mothers and other professional women, and the elderly and their families are the motivators who make her life fulfilling.

Her close-knit Italian family and a Barone household that was filled with love provided the role-modeling that shaped her life. Daily, whether Clelia realized it back then or not, there were the lessons from her family: the perseverance, strength, and determination exemplified by her mother; how her grandfather, Nonno Mimmo, showed his love by being a disciplinarian who respected accountability and follow-through; and the way her grandmother, Nonna Lidia, was the center of the family. Nonna Lidia was always there with unconditional love to soothe Clelia amid the ups and downs of growing up.

Clelia is quick to say that this home environment influenced the direction of her life.

It was only natural, then, that Clelia entered the workplace with a strong work ethic and a goal to apply her firm understanding of the importance of family to her relationships with both clients and colleagues.

It was also the way of things that when Nonna’s dementia took hold of her life, Clelia became a caregiver and decision-maker in determining the path that would be in Nonna’s best interests. When Nonna finally succumbed to her disease and passed, it shook Clelia’s world. She threw herself into her work. But in