Lies are a funny thing. They can get us in hot water and prove very troublesome, dangerous, embarrassing and difficult to recover from.

There are also those that are somewhat innocent, said to protect our feelings and seem to be the truth if stated enough times. It is the latter that this story is about.

My grandfather, Augusto (Gus) Di Giuseppe, came to the United States in 1914. It was at Ellis Island that they anglicized his last name to De Joseph, as they couldn't spell Di Giuseppe correctly.

He was born in a small village northeast of Rome, called Castelluccio in 1896. The homes there are over 800 yrs old. He left behind 3 brothers and a sister and his mother and father, all whom he never saw again.

The story goes, when he was about 7 years old, he came upon a National Geographic with pictures of the United States and he told his grandfather that one day he was going there. Later, at 18, he felt it necessary to come to the U.S; live his dream, earn money, and send it back home, as his family was quite poor. (We never found out how on earth he happened across the National Geographic.) He never went back. The lie sort of starts here, with the money.

I loved my grandfather. He was a wise, street-smart kind of guy. I especially liked it when he bossed my Dad around. It was funny to watch and my grandfather received the utmost respect from his children, my Dad, my Uncle Anthony and my Aunt Gracie.

Aunt Gracie took care of him after his wife died, at a very young age, and he lived with her family his entire life.

He owned a few acres of land that he gardened by hand. He wore dress clothes, straw hat and wing-tip shoes when he worked in the garden. He wore a long-sleeved white dress shirt, regardless of the weather. Oh yes, and a tie. You never saw a man dress like that to move dirt around!

When my wife and I were dating, we would visit him at the garden and help him pick vegetables. And his veggies were the best, we especially liked the peas as they were incredibly sweet. He truly had a "green thumb."

He enjoyed giving away his harvest as there was so much. I have never seen a garden quite like it.

He had this old plum tree which he patched up with cement, where the limbs had died off and this tree produced the tastiest fruit you can imagine.It was a gnarly looking tree, seemingly incapable of producing anything, but he coaxed heavenly fruit out of it and we all enjoyed it.

The holidays and his birthdays always saw the family get together to enjoy some great Italian cooking and all day poker games, which he always won. I loved to see my Dad and his brother suffer through these loses. It wasn't until many years later that it appeared to me that they let my grandfather win; after all, he was the head of the family!

Through the years, my Aunt Gracie wrote letters to a first cousin in Rome, by the name of Elsa, the daughter of one of my grandfathers' brothers, and received them in kind. They traded news and pictures about the families and they always sounded like good people.

Growing up, quite often this topic of the "Rome" family would come up and my grandfather would say, "They are no good, they always want money and they never say thanks!" He must have said this phrase 10,000 times over the years. But he always sent the money.

I remember our family gathered around his TV in July of 1969. Walter Cronkite was broadcasting the moon landing. It was very exciting and my grandfather watched with great interest. When it was over, he said quite clearly, "That is all bullshit!" He just refused to believe such a thing was possible. If he couldn't touch it, or taste it, it just didn't exist. You would have thought he was from Missouri, the "Show Me State."

A number of years later I took over the writing duties to our Rome family and had dreams of visiting them one day.

All of us encouraged Gus to go back home for a visit. Countless times we brought this up. He always said I'm not going, not on a plane or a ship, as he was afraid of both, supposedly. But he always fell back on his excuse that they are no good and they never say thanks for the money. His children grew up with this message and his grandchildren like me, to a lesser degree. So when I finally wised up, I became suspicious of what he said and why he said it.

As the years clicked by, most of the family moved on and in 1981, he died at age 84.

Then one day in the late 1980's, I suggested to my Dad that we go over for a visit. And he starts in to say that they are no good and never say thanks!

I said, "Dad, how do you know this? Just because Nanu said so?" (Nanu is the name all his grandchildren called him.) He realized I was right (one of the few times) and for a number of months I continued to pester him about making the trip.

Finally he said let's do it! At this time I had been communicating with Elsa's daughter, Sandra, my counterpart as a cousin.

So I began to make the arrangements for myself and my mom and dad.

Then my mother died.

The trip was called off and after about a year and a half, my father agreed to go once again.

Then a few months later, he died.

I grieved for both of them and it is a difficult time for me.

About 6 months later, my wife said to me one morning, "You need to go." "Go where, I asked?"

"To Rome."

So I made the arrangements, all the time afraid I may die before I get there!

I arrived in Rome in July of 1992. It was odd to see Italian police with machine guns patrolling the airport, as a result of recent terrorist attacks.

We had exchanged photos so it was easy to spot Sandra waiting for me. We were like old friends. And her English was flawless as she had studied it in London for 4 years. She occasionally corrected my grammar, which was quite funny, but she did a great job. I did my best to avoid slang, but at one dinner meal, there was a lot of commotion taking place, and I made the comment that this is like a "Chinese fire drill." Sandra asked me what I meant by that and I had a very difficult time explaining that away. Thereafter, I was on guard to avoid slang!

We made small talk as we made our way to her home in central Rome. The home was a very large gated apartment complex, with security, underground parking and a floor for each family, six in all.

I arrived about noon and they had a sumptuous lunch prepared for me and over forty relatives, who all greeted me with hugs and kisses. It was an emotional moment for me. And one I will never forget.

Sandra was the only one fluent in English and she would prove invaluable over the next two weeks with grueling translating duties.

Once the greetings were out of the way, Sandra asked me and all the male relatives to line up along the dining room table with our hands, palms down, upon the table. I had no idea what was going on, but after much yelling, laughing and crying, Sandra said that I had passed the test.

"What test, I asked?" She said the relatives were pleased that the genetics were still strong as our hands and the dimple in the chins were all identical. I was bewildered by this information as I would have never noticed. Indeed, the hands were interchangeable!

With that, we enjoyed a four hour lunch, which was a typical length of time for lunch, each day I was there.

Over the next week and half or so, we toured Rome, ate in the relatives restaurants and experienced the best food I have ever eaten. And of course learning bits and pieces of this wonderful family as the days went by.

Breakfast was pretty much non-existent, lunch lasted from noon until about 4pm, followed by a short nap and then everyone was back to work.

Dinner began around 9pm and sometimes lasted until 1 am! I never did figure out how anything got done with all this eating going on!

With each day bringing something new and exciting, I couldn't help feeling lonely due to my parents and grandfather never having had a chance to do what I was doing. I was sad.

And I had this gnawing sensation that something was amiss, I just couldn't lay my hands on it. But it was there, a thought that was struggling to emerge.

We travelled to the village to spend a weekend there, a weekend retreat. Truly an incredible journey!

It was lovely there and the stone homes, long since modernized, were a joy to see. I slept in the bedroom my grandfather was born in and the air was pure and fresh and I knew I was close to heaven.

The church there was built 1200 years ago and the pews were last replaced 250 years ago! I attended a Saturday evening service and was the center of attention for the townspeople. Many of them knew my grandfather and they cried, they hugged, and kissed me. It was truly a family. I was in a time machine.

My last night in the village, they cooked pizzas in outdoor wood-fired ovens and the whole village was invited over for a going away party for me.

The pizza and wine flowed freely.

Then the question and the revelation.

Sandra got everyone to quiet down and she told me the people, friends and relatives, have a question for me.

Sandra said, "Steve, they all want to know why your grandfather never came back home?"

It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. These people were grateful and generous and loving. They were not "no good," as my grandfather had often said.

This family had, with my grandfathers' help, emerged from poverty and had done very well with restaurants, real estate and gas pumps in the city of Rome. His investment had paid off. They were very wealthy. And very good.

They had even offered me a job! I knew I was going to have a very difficult time leaving as I had a job and wife and four daughters to go back home to!

They were just family, with deep roots. I loved them.

I then told Sandra, "I do not know if you can translate this, but my grandfather told a lie growing up, that you people were no good and never said thank you for the money. He protected his true feelings by telling us this lie which I believe he came to see as a truth. He could never come back here and then leave again. My God, I'm having trouble leaving! There was no way he was going to leave the family he and his wife had created and come here and then leave again. His love for both families was far too strong, so he stayed put."

As Sandra translated, the tears began to flow and much conversation ensued.

Sandra looked over at me and tearfully said, "That is the answer they have been waiting for all these years and thank you for coming. That is why you are here." That gnawing sensation was now gone.

During my last evening in their home in Rome, they carefully un-wrapped a leather-bound bible that was about 150 years old. It was beautiful. In the margins throughout were stories about my grandfathers' family.

Most of the stories centered on an old grandfather named Stefan Di Giuseppe. He was known as the "black haired man from Venice" and was quite tall and handsome. From the dates, it appeared this man lived around the late 1700's. (It is odd that I have the same name as him and of course he had to better looking!)

One vignette had the local priest, who was a friend of this grandfather, approach him seeking aid. He had gotten a nun pregnant and was willing to pay Stefan to take the baby away at the time of birth. Stefan agreed to this and as the due date came nearer, Stefan would hit up this nervous priest for more money explaining how difficult this arrangement would be. Of course, the priest paid up!

On the birth day, Stefan then left the baby on the priests' doorstep and headed off to Rome!

Another story had it that Stefan was seeing two women at the same time and they both wanted to marry him!

Somehow, the women got him into a courtroom where Stefan was buddies with the judge. There the two women met for the first time and a knock-down, dragged-out fight took place. While this was going on, Stefan looked at the judge and asked, "Would you marry them?" The judge replied, "You go out the back door and I will take care of them!"

And so the stories went. This grandfather finally settled down and thus began my family.

I wish I had a copy of this fabulous family heirloom. We had a lot of laughs over this man from the past. According to what was written, his family had come from an area within Turkey about 700 years before and settled in Venice. Imagine that!

I know my grandfather and my parents were with me on that trip and it will always be one of the great highlights of my life.

I often wonder how many old-world grandparents have put up a front to mask their own true feelings about leaving the old country and thus deprive their offspring of a trip back in time?

My grandfathers' lie was a good one. He had us all believing it for a long time. I understood and would have done the same thing.

I'm very grateful I had an opportunity to travel back and experience his family and uncover the truth behind this old tale.