I have a few regrets in my life. I know not the best to have but such it is. Two of them are pretty major.
The first is that I did not go to the police and file a report when I was raped.
The second is not telling my Uncle about all the abuse I endured after I married my rapist.
Sometimes I just think about how different my life would have been, could have been, as those two regrets most likely would have changed the entire trajectory that led me to today.
I should have gone to the police, or at least another adult, regarding the rape...but back then it was humiliating, full of shame, and too scary. It was as though my soul was kidnapped when in truth a piece of me was destroyed. I was always invisible to my parents so they did not even realize or take notice of how the trauma caused my world to change.
Marrying my rapist, though, is on a whole other level of making a bad decision...but I keep reflecting how different things might have been had I told my Uncle Jimmy what was transpiring. He would have "remedied" the situation with my abuser. I believe wholeheartedly that he would have taught Robert Levine a lesson or two, or three or four.
This Uncle I speak of was best known to many as "Jimmy Blue Eyes." To me, he was just Uncle Jimmy. He wasn't a real Uncle, but my maternal Grandmother's cousin. My Grandmother, Elvira Scalzo Ciringione, was cousin to my Uncle Jimmy and his brother, Uncle Joe Alo. Uncle Joe was my very favorite relative as I was growing up.
Up until I left for college, I was extremely close to my Uncle Joe. He'd take me for walks through the woods behind his house in Pelham Manor for hours and teach me about all the various kinds of mushrooms there are in the world. He'd always say mushrooms were his favorite vegetable. He'd sauté, fry, roast and bake them. He had a colorful chart of all the species, edible and inedible. When my Aunt Nina, his wife, got her first racing green Jaguar, my Uncle told me immediately and brought me to see that gorgeous new car - because he knew how much I loved automobiles even as a child. When I was in high school, I brought my first boyfriend to visit my Uncle Joe and Aunt Nina every week. My boyfriend, James Landis, enjoyed speaking to my Uncle about medicine. My Uncle Joe was a doctor and James became one. When I got my driver's license, the first place I drove to was my Uncle Joe's house. My Uncle Joe, Aunt Nina, and their dog Ali were my refuge, my safe place, where I felt loved.
So on all those visits, I'd sometimes see Uncle Joe's brother and mother - Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Julia. Aunt Julia did not speak a single word of English, only Italian. She always wore a black dress of sorts with black knee high stockings. She embodied a stereotype of elderly Italian woman from the Italian countryside so long ago. She could not communicate in English, but she always let me know how happy she was to see me and how much she loved me, via hugs and kisses.
Aunt Julia sure knew how to make me feel special. Needing my relatives to translate, she consistently told me I was her favorite girl - she believed I was named after her, and that was an honor. Neither of my Uncles had children so Aunt Julia truly doted on me. Whenever she saw me she'd say , "My Julie for Julia" in Italian. Then shed give me a hug so great that it blocked out the rest of the world.
I'd also see my Uncle Jimmy in Pelham Manor for many Sunday dinners. He and my grandmother were close. I remember them always laughing together like they had inside jokes no one else knew about. But I also remember a lesson that Uncle Jimmy told me. You had to eat pasta only when it was hot. One Sunday, Aunt Nina served pasta that was not piping hot. My Uncle Jimmy, sitting at the head of the table in their dining room, was furious and yelled at my Aunt. He made her take the plate back as he expressed his anger. I was terrified and followed my Aunt into the kitchen where I watched her cook a fresh batch of pasta and sauce for Uncle Jimmy. As he received his fresh entree, he said never eat pasta at room temperature. And that was that.
I also have many memories of visiting my Uncle Jimmy in Florida every year as a child. I would get so excited when we pulled up to the big letter A on his metal front gate at the foot of his driveway. Throughout my childhood, he loved to hear me play the piano and always commented on my progress. He did an awesome Jimmy Durante impersonation, with a hat, that was always a good laugh.
But I always noticed all the men surrounding the outskirts of my vision. They were always wearing dark suits. I learned early on not to ask any questions. I remember my grandmother whispering that to me.
One time at his house, I opened the door to a back room only to find someone smiling up at me from under the covers of a bedspread. A guy. I was pulled out of the room and told that this "young man" was sick and to be quiet. I never touched anything I wasn't supposed to again. I later found out that "guy" was the son of someone my Uncle worked with. Decades later I learned he worked for someone named Meyer Lansky.
As years went by, and my college education approached, I lost track of my Uncle Jimmy. Throughout my childhood, I was told that he worked in the furniture business. And as my high school years came to a close and I was off to college, my grandmother told me that my Uncle relocated to Rome, Italy. I never heard from him again, nor was he spoken of.
I left for college and there was no more communication with my Uncle Joe and Aunt Nina. I didn't know what happened and really just let it go as I settled into my new future education. But it was all off. I didn't know what happened to anyone...not even Aunt Julia. And when I asked my Grandmother, she would end the conversations.
Everyone was dismantled.
It wasn't until years later that I finally learned the truth.
My Uncle Jimmy Alo was in the Mafia. The real Mafia! He did not go to Rome. He went to prison.
My Uncle Joe and Aunt Nina disconnected from all that they knew. As a doctor, his reputation was effected by his family relationships.
I did not see them again after I left for college. I graduated college, was raped, married my rapist, had two sons and was a victim of domestic violence for twenty years. I asked my grandmother many questions before she passed away, during my divorce. My Uncle Jimmy could have helped me so many times for so many years - but I did not tell anyone. I was only in survival mode trying to protect my two boys.
During my divorce from Robert Levine, my grandmother told me she had wished she had told my Uncle Jimmy, she said he would have fixed everything. She told me about my Uncle's true life as Jimmy Blue Eyes right hand man to Meyer Lansky. How I wished I had known.
He could have changed my outcome. He could have made it so my sons would know and grow up with my own values, not those of their abusive father. Uncle Jimmy would have helped me escape the life of harm from a sociopathic husband.
If only.
Sometimes I still sit and think about what a difference it would have made. He certainly would have taught my now ex husband a few lessons.
But that's the thing about regrets....they are feelings of sorrow for inactions and also for actions that never happened.
We all make mistakes, sometimes keeping secrets, and have regrets. Some little, some big,
some simple and some more complex.
Some things we regret forever.
