Fabrizio De Rossi really enjoyed his job of helping out the new immigrants who came to America. Firstly because he was an immigrant himself when he had come here on board the Carpathia just six months ago along with his best friend Jack Dawson who was now married to Rose Dewitt Bukater who he had met on the ship, and with Helga Dahl a young Norwegian woman who he was now married to.

He had at first been on his way here on the Titanic when it had sank four days into its maiden voyage. He and his loved ones had just barely manged to live through it though at the same time he felt the things he went through with it had made him stronger and also appreciate life more than ever.

Second, he loved his job with the new arrivals to America because he loved to meet with such a diverse range of people and in such great numbers every day. As he got to know them and help them to find their place in America he learned a tremendous lot of their other cultures, their customs and traditions, languages and religions, and even a few new recipes. He felt this broadened and enriched him as a human being and also as a citizen of the United States which he had become just three months ago.

Today he met with an Italian family of eight members that consisted of two parents and six children ranging from ages one to fifteen who had come over just this very day. The parents of course were in need of finding a suitable new home and stable jobs for themselves that would support their children.

As Fabrizio spoke with them he couldn't help but watch how the Italian mother held and nestled her year old baby in her arms and also how the oldest son always stood right beside of his father who wore a most proud expression for him. And noticing these things he couldn't help but think about his own parents. His father had been deceased for almost five years now though he still carried him in his heart all the time, and his mother was alive and back in his native home in Italy.

Subconsciously, thoughts and memories of his mother began to flood his mind and heart in torrents. He remembered how her nurturing love and affection to him and shaped the person he was today and for that he was forever grateful for. And how she always seemed to know exactly how to speak to him about anything in a way he could always understand. And how she always seemed to know exactly how to comfort him in the toughest of times during his early life. It was for all of these things that he returned her love and affection for him wholeheartedly and after all if it hadn't been for her he wouldn't have even come into this world in the first place.

How he wished she were here with him right now. Here to enjoy the liberty and the beauty of America alongside him, and meet his new friends and especially his wife Helga who he knew she would have no objection to for being of another nation as it was because of her teaching him to love and respect all people of the world no matter who they were that he had been able to fall so in love with Helga in the first place, even in spite of how they couldn't verbally understand each other in the beginning. He missed his mothers warm arms holding him and kissing his face so much now that a pang of loneliness and longing came over him from the inside out. He wished fervently he could bring her over to the States to live with him right now, but at the same time he well knew that he couldn't even afford half of the cost it would take to do so right now. He suddenly began to wonder if he ever would be able to.

He tried to keep his inner sadness in check as he helped the Italian family of newcomers find an apartment just big enough to accommodate all of them and also find the father a job as a shoemaker and the mother one at a small bakery. He bade them goodbye and continued with his job for the rest of the day and tried to keep smiling to everyone he met with but still the feeling of emptiness remained inside of his heart throughout and he found himself unable to diminish it.

Then at the end of the day he returned to his home at the apartment building which he and Helga and their friends the Dawsons lived in. He opened their door and found Helga standing there awaiting him. His face broke into a smile instantly at the sight of her own welcoming smile for him. How he loved Helga. She was his everything. His angel of light. When he first saw her he already knew he was destined to spend the rest of his life loving her just as sure as he was destined to spend the rest of it in America and he had been right.

She held her arms out to him invitingly and he stepped willingly into them. They then kissed passionately and lovingly and as they did he felt as he always did when they did this that he was right where he belonged with her and she belonged with him, right in each others arms. He felt they were part of each others hearts and souls and would be so till the end of time. They continued to hold each other for a few moments relishing in the feel of the warmth of one another's bodies pressed against each other and then they slowly pulled back and gazed into each other's eyes and smiles.

"Welcome home, my love," said Helga. Like his, her English had improved vastly since they had come here.

"I am always happy to come home," he replied with his usual sweet smile.

They then walked into the kitchen where she began to dish up the food she had made for their dinner, which they would be having tonight with the Dawsons as they did once or twice every other week. As he sat at the table and waited his smile slowly faded out and a very somber expression came over his features once again as thoughts of wanting and wishing his mother to be here returned to him and gave him a feeling of hollowness. This was very soon noticed by Helga and she became quite concerned as this was most unusual for him and she put down what she had been doing and took a seat at the table next to him.

"Fabrizio my angel, what is wrong? Why do you seem to be unhappy all of a sudden?" she asked tenderly leaning towards him.

He sighed as he looked up and gazed into her heart-shaped face with its ocean blue eyes and sunshine colored hair in small neat curls and said candidly, "I am just missing my Mama now. I always do, but now I do even more. I wish she were here with us right now."

Helga looked at him understandingly. "You do write her a letter every week or so, don't you?"

"Yes, but it is not the same as her being here," he said forlornly. "I just want to be able to be in her arms again and to show her around here... I want to share our happiness with her." He took in a small breath as his sweet brown eyes began to brim with sparkling tears.

Helga looked as if she were sharing in his pain at the moment. She did know what it was like to miss one's parents as she had lost both of hers to the sinking of the Titanic. She reached down and tenderly laid her hand over his own underneath the table and said, "Then you must bring her over here to live with us."

Fabrizio's lower lip began to tremble slightly as he shook his head slowly and replied, "But I don't know how I will ever get the kind of money needed to bring her here. And even if I do, maybe she won't come for I know how she loves Italia." As he spoke his tears began to slowly drip from his eyes and he reached into his left trouser pocket and took out the handkerchief which Helga had lovingly embroidered for him on his twenty-first birthday and dabbed them away and sniffled.

Helga squeezed his hand comfortingly and lovingly as she said, "Fabri, how can you say so? I mean, if she has any amount of the love I have for you she will willingly come, and I love you so much I'd willingly go anywhere just to be with you. And besides, don't you think she would want to see America too?"

Fabrizio dried his eyes and said, "I suppose you're right, mio angela. But I still don't know how I can get the money needed to bring her here. Do you?"

"Well, no," admitted Helga. "But I do know you can find it if you were to perhaps earn more by taking on another job in along with the one you have now."

Fabrizio's countenance brightened a bit. He hadn't thought of that, and it seemed like it was the very solution. "I suppose I could. But where could I?"

Helga thought a moment. "I don't know yet. But I do know it must be one to suit you and I'm sure it will be possible to find it if you just look for it."

Fabrizio smiled lovingly at her. How she reminded him of his mother by knowing just the right things to say to make him feel better. "Alright, I will look for another job starting tomorrow," he said. "You make me feel better Helga. Grazie. I love you."

"I love you, too, Fabri," she said and leaned forward to kiss him lightly and softly on his lips for a moment.

They then resumed making their preparation for their dinner with the Dawsons who arrived shortly thereafter. They all sat down and began eating.

It was soon when Jack spoke to Fabrizio. "Fabri, it's Thanksgiving soon. Do you know about it?"

Fabrizio thought for a moment and then replied, "No, I don't. What is it, Jack?" he asked curiously.

"It is a very special holiday celebrated here in America every year on the last Thursday in November in honor of the first people to come to America a few hundred years ago. They came here in search of freedom and they befriended the natives who already lived here who taught them how to grow things like corn and then when their first harvest came they had more than enough food for everyone and called it a celebration of feasting and giving thanks for their new home and friends. That day is still celebrated to this day as a celebration of American freedom and of friendship among us all, especially people like you and Helga."

Fabrizio smiled as he listened to Jack and his sparkled. "It sounds like a va bene holiday. I would love to celebrate here with all of you."

"I was hoping you would," said Jack. "I also wanted to tell you that tomorrow I will be going with you to your job so that I can sketch a few drawings for a newspaper column on the work that you do with the new immigrants here for the reason of the upcoming holiday."

"Fellisimo. I would like that very much, Jack," Fabrizio said with much enthusiasm.

"Great," said Jack. "And after that I'll be going to a homeless shelter for the same purpose."

"A homeless shelter? What is that?" inquired Fabrizio curiously.

"It's a place where people who don't have any homes for whatever reason can go to find food and shelter at least for a while," explained Jack. "I reckon there will be a lot of people there who have just come here too."

Fabrizio became very thoughtful at the idea of people without homes as the idea of it quite irked him. He believed that no one should ever be without a home especially people who came to America in search of a new one. He thought he would like to do something about it.

"If it is alright with you Jack, I would like to go with you to see the homeless shelter," he said.

"Sure, Fabri," said Jack.

So the next day Jack accompanied Fabrizio to his job and sketched a few drawings of the environment in which he worked. Then afterward Fabrizio accompanied Jack to the homeless shelter. Once there he saw dozens of people even more diverse than those he had seen while on the Titanic. He saw white, black, brown, and Asian faces and as many men as women as well as children. They went into the dining hall where they saw the crowds of people lining up for their evening meal and dishing up a huge variety of foods and then they watched the people eat just like they were almost starving.

Fabrizio was hardly a stranger to hunger as he had had to endure such things when he and Jack had been a couple of vagabonds wandering all over Europe for two years before they had won their tickets on the Titanic. Yet many of these people looked like they had suffered through it and more a lot more than they should have and he deeply sympathized with them. He saw men who were unclean, unshaven, and in very worn clothing and could quite relate to them, except he had always had a home he could back to if he wanted to and these people didn't have any home at all which he felt sure just wasn't right. He began wondering if perhaps he could do anything for these poor people.

And it was then that he knew exactly what his secondary job was going to be. So while Jack was busy with his drawings he asked to speak with the ones who were in charge of things around here and he was shown to them.

"Are all of these people here without homes and jobs?" he inquired.

"Most of them," was the reply. "Some are just on the brink of it."

"And do they get enough food to eat around here?" he asked further.

"Usually," replied the person he was speaking to. "Although at times we get low on our food supplies and we also don't often have enough extra clothes for them to change into. And also we often get short on space in the bedrooms for them to sleep in so they not everyone gets to sleep indoors all the time, which we really do regret."

"Do you know Thanksgiving is coming?" asked Fabrizio. "Will you have enough food for everyone here then?"

"We would like to, but it's most likely we'll end up a little short on it."

"But why?" asked Fabrizio.

"Well, there just aren't enough workers around here as it is, and just not enough donations come in."

Fabrizio's mind was quite made up then. "Well," he said, "then I would very much like to become a worker here and help out in any way I can. And I will make sure there is enough food for Thanksgiving and there are more beds."

"We certainly appreciate it, but are sure you will be able to do so?"

"I have another steady job and I earn enough to support myself and my family," he said, "I will do everything I can to help around here."

"Thank you."

He then signed a few papers and had his new job. Then over the next weeks he met with many of the people at the shelter and learned of their histories. He learned some were without homes simply because when they had arrived in this country they had nothing with them and had not known any English at all and so were unable to find jobs or housing. So he would take them to his job at Immigration and worked hard to find them jobs so they wouldn't stay homeless. He succeeded in a few. He also took extra duties at his first job so he could earn extra and afford to buy food for the Thanksgiving day dinner.

As the day for Thanksgiving began to get closer he began to buy much, much, much food for the shelter's dinner. He also decided he would cook some of the food for it himself and include some of his homeland's famous dishes such as lasagna with extra cheese and meat sauce.

On the day before the Thanksgiving dinner he stood in the kitchen over the stove making his family's secret special sauce and humming lightly to himself when Helga entered and stood beside him.

"Mmmm..." she murmured as she caught the whiff of his cooking. "It smells so good and so tempting I can feel my mouth watering."

Fabrizio looked over at her and grinned. He was so proud to know of the secret in his family's special sauce that had been kept just between them for many generations and it was the secret in it that was making Helga's mouth water. He dipped a wooden spoon beside him into the sauce and held it out to Helga.

"Would you like a taste?" he asked generously.

She tasted of the sauce on the spoon and her smile brightened as he eyes gleamed at the slightest tatse of it. "Oh, it tastes like heaven on earth," she uttered.

He smiled and then leaned towards her and gave her a brief lovingly tender kiss upon her lips. "And you taste just the same." he uttered sweetly.

Helga smiled at him with absolute adoration and said, "I really do love you, Fabri, for what you are doing for all these people today."

"I am just acting as I was raised to," he replied very humbly.

Shortly thereafter, they and the Dawsons gathered all of the food they had made and brought it with them to the shelter. Then at exactly six o' clock everyone who was in the shelter gathered into the dining hall and all sat down at the long tables in many long rows and looked at all of the food that was laid out on them.

There were of course many turkeys, and mashed potatoes with gravy, and cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes, and deviled eggs, and winter squash, and peas and carrots,turnips, corn on the cob, and bread rolls, biscuits, cornbread, banana bread, and pies of apple, mince, walnut, and pumpkin.

Once everyone had been seated, Fabrizio stood up at the head of the table in the very center of the rows and cleared his throat slightly before he began to make his speech.

"I welcome you all here today on this very special day of feasting and celebrating of liberty. Especially those of you who have just come to this country from the one you were raised in. You, like the first pilgrims before you, have come here to find freedom and a new and better life for yourselves and the ones you love, and so have I. You have all come so far and you must never give up hope for yourselves in finding your dreams coming true someday, even if you are now in the midst of hard times for yourselves and your families. I want you to know I am no stranger to such things and I have come through all of them and into light itself I believe. So just remember if you all will hold on together that you're dreams can never die but will see you through."

They all then held hands and said the grace and then began to dig into the Thanksgiving feast provided for them. Everyone had more than their fill of the food there was and everyone had a good time just being together.

Fabrizio greatly enjoyed his very first Thanksgiving and felt that no one in the whole room was more happier and content than he was.