Today being Father's Day, I thought it would be the perfect day to update this post.  4 months ago when I reached out to the community for a big favor, Mario_1 answered the call and came through in a big way.  I was able to pinpoint the location of my friend's family roots.  I found out his Grandfather's Mother is from Caiazzo, Caserta in Italy.  I also learned that the Grandfather, George Sr., holds his mother in the highest regard.  Apparently he has a giant picture or painting of her hanging over the dining room table and they all eat under it whenever the family gets together.  In addition to a geography lesson, Mario was able to locate two figs that he had that were from within 20 miles of Caiazzo and he mailed them to me and wouldn't take a thing in return.  As I got to know Mario, I quickly realized this story was going to be special.  The Grandfather and Mario both immigrated here from Italy, started constructions companies, worked hard and now are enjoying retirement.  Shortly after Mario generously shipped me the two trees, he was asking around the Italian Community and was reminded that a certain fig that he already owned was actually from the Caiazzo.  Again he sent another large package, this time sharing a couple heirloom fig trees for me and a number of cuttings, which included the special cutting of his Caiazzo fig.  I was completely speechless, not only seeing this plan begin to take shape but the generosity was remarkable.  I told him I would try to get the cutting to root in time for the birthday but I knew there was a good chance I would fail at rooting it or not get it rooted in time for the big day.
I successfully rooted 2 of the cuttings and pampered them along.  At this point, the brothers are asking me about the figs on a weekly basis and news is beginning to spread in our church about what we're up to.  Finally the big day rolled around and I had one of the cuttings just barely hardened off with just a couple little leaves on it.  So I prepared a box with the two trees from Caserta and the one small tree from Caiazzo.  The birthday was Sunday so I stayed up until about 1am the night before writing a 1 page long note to go with the figs.  It began by describing a little about the uniqueness of figs and how cuttings are an exact clone of the parent and how immigrants often carried a cutting with them as a way to bring a part of their home with them to the new destination.  I then described the story of how the figs were sourced from Mario.  Finally I described each of the 3 figs, describing the Caiazzo fig last.  It said we saved the best for last and noted the source in the description.  I also printed off care instructions.  My wife then made them look nice with some scrapbooking skills.
The next day I saw the whole family at church and realized this had truly become a family affair.  They all knew about the figs and were excited to bring them to the birthday party for their grandfather, who had told them not to get him any presents because he felt like he already had all he wanted and there wasn't anything left they could get him that he couldn't just go out and get himself.  However, this special gift had now become a gift from the entire family.  I told them to take pictures and video so I could see his response and post about it.  They had the party and the sons presented the box of figs to their Grandfather.  Initially he was extremely excited and said “You got me a fig tree!!!”  He began reading the write-up and was overjoyed.  He made it most of the way through until he hit the part where it said the 3^rd tree was from “Caiazzo, yes that’s right CAIAZZO” suddenly he completely lost it.  They said a man who doesn’t usually show a great deal of emotion suddenly couldn’t even read another word because he was so undone with emotion.  They actually had to take the note from him and finish reading it to him.  They said he teared up and was extremely emotional the entire rest of the day.  They couldn’t recall ever seeing him so happy and everyone agreed that this was hands down the best gift he had ever received.

They celebrated all day and George Sr. was constantly checking on his new connection to his homeland after all of these years.  They all thanked me so much for the help and sent their thanks to everyone that played a part in this endeavor.  They also sent pics and video.  It was really touching.  George Sr. came to my church last week and wanted to meet me to personally express his thanks.  He said the trees are growing great.  He has been growing them indoors in a window where he can see them all the time and baby them.

I want to give a very special thanks to Mario and everyone on the forum for making stories like this possible!!!  There are some really amazing people on this forum and I’m so glad to be a part of it.  Pics will be up shortly.

Happy Father’s Day to all of the Fathers & Grandfathers out there!

Timothy