The importance and meaning of an object determines its value to a person. All objects have meaning but differ depending on the person. Personally, a book written by my family in Italy that tells my family's timeline is very important to me. Four years ago the book was sent to my family from Italy, written by Francesco Malucelli.
Long story short it was about Mario Malucelli, he was in the army in Italy and got captured by the United States and was brought back to the US. Once they released him he decided to stay in the states and met my great-great grandmother. They lived in Brooklyn, NY and soon had my grandfather, Augusto Malucelli. After experiencing heartache and tragedy, I hold tight to the good memories, and now this book sent to my family is part of those memories. It told the story of the Malucelli timeline and pictures of our family tree.
As we opened up the book everything was written in italian. We need to translate everything to soon find out the story of Mario Malucelli. The book explained how Mario grew up with five brothers. His family lived on a farm in Italy and lived the casual Italian lifestyle. But soon he would make a decision that would change his life forever. He decided he wanted to join the army in Italy.
At this time there was a lot going on in Italy and he felt he needed “with everything going on, I need to protect my family”. This was during the time of World War I, when World War I broke out in the summer of 1914, Italy declared itself neutral in the conflict.
As the five brothers were playing on their farm they heard a noise in the crops. Mario being the oldest and most responsible told his siblings to go back to the house. This is when two U.S. soldiers grabbed Mario and took them with him. His family was very worried, but little did they know he got captured and brought to the US.
After the war everything started to settle down and Mario was soon realized he was free to leave. Mario got in contact with his family but decided to stay in the US and start over for himself. He met my great-grandmother, they got married and gave birth to my grandfather, Augusto Malucelli.
This book is important to me because it shows my family's history. It really shows me how things happen for a reason because if my great-grandfather was never captured, I wouldn’t be here today. My family has a story and a piece of artwork to our history. As Sherry Turkle wrote in Evocative Objects, “I grew up hoping that objects would connect me to the world.” This book sent to my family will always be with us and connects me to the world.
Objects are among the most important components of a compelling story. An object can be anything and can represent anything. It might be a treasure, an item of usefulness, a symbol of death, a piece of love but for everyone it means something different. One man's garbage is another man's treasure. Something that means nothing to one person could mean the world to another.
Why this story is so important
Within the book are tons of pictures of Malucelli that live in Italy. Most of my family I have never met before but plan on doing so soon. For the past year I have been trying to learn Italian and finishing reading the story of my family. Through the book I have figured out most of their names and have got in contact with some of them. They all speak Italian so it is very hard to clearly understand them but it’s getting better. Throughout life, “We may not be able to shake our drive to acquire stuff, nor our tendency to compare ourselves with others," Michael Bond wrote. "But we can change the amount of happiness we get out of the stuff we buy." Furthermore this quote explains how the meaning of an object is emphasized through what the person does with this object. When this book was given to me I made the decision to find out who my relatives are and contact them. Once you consider something to be interesting to you, objects realize a different layer of value.
The objects that have the most value are the ones that interest you the most. The story of my family has an even deeper meaning. First, it’s my family, this makes it way more interesting for me because it’s my history of how I came to be. Seeing the pictures of all my relatives makes it even more interesting. Everything written in Italian makes me want to learn the culture even more. Everything about this book brings me closer to my cultural heritage.
Most of the things in life won’t be important to us, pursuing what we see interesting is what’s important. luxuries or junk, our possessions become a piece of ourselves. We use them to show to ourselves, and others, who we want to be and where we want to belong. And after we're gone, they'll become our legacy.
This book that was sent to my family four years ago, is now my legacy. I hold tight to the good memories, and now this book sent to my family is part of those memories.
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