With the wind whipping round the family house and the colors fading to winter, an elderly Italian woman, driven by fear of her encroaching death, decides to write a long letter to her granddaughter in America. In some ways it is a love letter; in others, a confession. Above all it is a bequest - of advice for life from an old woman at last brave enough to acknowledge that she has too long submitted to convention and kept hidden her feelings.

She relives everything that has happened to her, teaching her granddaughter that the one important journey in life is to the center of ourselves - to the point where we can gather the courage to follow our hearts.