Modern Family: Italian Style
Why I adopted a 23-year-old Italian guy I met on Instagram
By any measure, my life is far from conventional.
Like a gay Holden Caufield, I was expelled from boarding school. After that, I went to art school in the ’80s, lived in Italy, partied hard, and remained a virgin well into my twenties.
Over the next few decades, I fell in and out of love a few times, got sober, earned a couple of master's degrees, and built a solid career as a stay-at-home marketing executive.
Now, in mid-fifties, I’m happily married, still sober, running my own business, and living at the beach.
But when I tell people I unofficially adopted a 23-year-old Italian guy I met on Instagram, even my closest, most open-minded friends raise their eyebrows.
Meet Fra
In Italian, Fra is short for Francesco. I met Fra almost three years ago on Instagram.
At the time, he lived in Rome, working in a bank, and dreaming of a life in the US. I was living in Washington DC and dreaming of a life in Italy. So, we started chatting on DM.
When I was his age, I told him I moved to Italy, where I lived and worked for a year. I encouraged him to do likewise, to follow his dream while still young and unencumbered with obligations.
Much to my surprise, he wrote to me a couple of weeks later saying that my advice had changed his life. He said that he’d quit his job and was coming to the US to visit me.
Needless to say, I was shocked he’d taken my advice. I also felt that somehow he was now my responsibility.
I was still working full-time, and my husband, Mike, who was already retired, was about to leave for six weeks of study in France. I explained to Mike what had happened and asked if Fra could stay at our house while he was away.
Without a second thought, Mike said, “sure,” instinctively understanding that there was nothing sexual in my request. And that’s more than I can say for most other people I’ve told. Aside from Mike, the only other person who took me at my word about Fra was my mom.
When Angels Knock at Your Door
As I waited for his plane to arrive at Dulles International Airport, all I kept thinking was, “What the hell am I doing?”
I have no idea who this person is. Can I really trust him? Is he really even who he says he is?
And then, to counter my second thoughts, I remembered moving to Rome at 23. For the first month, I was scared and lonely. I knew one other American in Rome, and she was so agoraphobic she rarely left her apartment. However, she suggested finding work as an artist assistant and told me to seek out a painter named Bruno Ceccobelli.
I’d never heard of Bruno and knew nothing of his work, and even though I loved to paint, I had been a photography major in art school. But I was desperate to remain in Italy, so I mustered every ounce of courage I had, went to his art studio, and knocked on the door.
At first, Bruno seemed a little skeptical, but then he agreed to try me out for a couple of days (una prova). Soon after, he hired me part-time and, eventually, full-time. I ended up working for Bruno for a year, meeting many famous artists and gallery owners, and learning more Italian in that year than most ex-pats do in a decade. For me, it was life-changing.
One day I asked Bruno why he hadn’t turned me away. He said, “I couldn’t; you looked so scared.”
Besides, he explained, “when a stranger knocks on your door, you must never turn him away.”
What he said next blew me away. “You could very well have been a messenger or even angel sent by God.”
Remembering all this, as I waited at the baggage claim, I saw Fra approaching, a skinny twenty-three-year-old in a T-shirt and sweatpants. In his big sneakers, he reminded me of a puppy as he bounded toward me, smiling.
Turning 50
There was something about turning fifty that was deeply disturbing. Mainly it was the realization that no matter how you slice it, I was no longer young.
Nevermind that I was in the best shape of my life, and didn’t, according to most people, even look like I was forty. Or the fact that, at least on paper, my whole life, including my marriage, career, family, friendships, and home, looked amazing.
On the inside, I knew something was missing.
I know it’s not a nice thing to say, but I don’t like children. I didn’t even like them when I was a child. If that sounds harsh, ask anybody who grew up different in any way. Children, they will tell you, can be ruthless.
So when Mike and I first got together, nearly twenty years ago, I wasn’t much interested in having kids. Nor, for that matter, was Mike.
So our Labrador retriever, Emily, was our child. Mike and I have our disagreements, but the one thing we never disagreed about was Emily. We both loved Emily unconditionally, and she never wanted for a thing.
Shortly before Mike was to leave for France, she died peacefully at fourteen and a half.
Needless to say, Emily’s death, left a huge hole in our household.
Mike felt having Fra visit would provide me with companionship during his absence and help ease the pain of losing Emily.
He was right on both counts.
A Family Guy
When Fra first arrived, I thought I would show him all the great things about Washington DC — the museums, the monuments, the restaurants, and everything else that made Washington a world capital.
I soon learned that Fra preferred sleeping until noon to sightseeing, eating cheeseburgers to pasta, and watching Family Guy reruns in Italian on his iPhone to cultural outings.
What was even worse was when I found out that he prefers suburban American homes — with vinyl siding and white picket fences — to all the history and antiquities in Italy combined.
Once, Fra said, “Rome is nothing more than a bunch of old shit that remains when everything else — everything good — is gone.”
He also likes pickup trucks, guys with dad bods, country music, and Cardi-B. (Just shoot me.)
Yet, for all our differences, Fra and I are very much alike.
Like mine at his age, Fra's life is a jumble of raw energy, ambition, and hope, all tinged by fear and the sadness of past trauma and disillusionment.
The only real difference between our lives is that Fra’s looks like a puzzle that still needs to be put together.
Ever since that first moment at the airport, I’ve never doubted my decision.
La Famiglia
The first time Fra came, he had a tourist visa that was only good for three months. So a month after Mike came home from France, Fra returned to Italy. The plan was that he’d return with a student visa to study English.
We found an English language school in DC for him to attend, and I agreed to sponsor him. I signed a document showing that I had the means to support him and stating that I’d be financially responsible for him.
Soon he was back, living in our guest room, attending English classes during the day, and going on dates at night. After a couple of false relationship starts, he decided to go back to Italy for a while.
While Fra was in Italy, my mother died of cancer. My mother, being of Italian descent, was the very heart of our family. For my brother and me, losing our mom was devastating. There are no words for her loss.
Shortly after she died, my brother underwent drastic surgery to cure him of the chronic pain that has dogged him ever since his spinal cord injury 35 years ago.
When Fra came back, he lived with my brother Lucian in Pennsylvania and studied at West Chester University. You cannot imagine how happy and proud I was that he was back.
And it gets better. Fra met a guy, Nick, and they fell in love. After dating for six months, Fra and Nick moved in together. This past summer, when Trump threatened to expel all the foreign students taking classes online, they got married.
Now, thanks in part to Trump’s malevolence, Fra is now on his way to becoming a US citizen.
In the meantime, My husband and I have moved out of Washington to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, with our new dog, Frankie. We are looking forward to hosting the whole family this year for Thanksgiving.
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I’m a proud dad and a freelance white paper writer who tends to blog about thought leadership marketing, coffee, Italy, life, digital content creation, LGBT stuff, and the ROI of being nice.
