Living Proof

Straight from the agonizing breech birth that you endured with me, you and I are not supposed to be here right now. But here we are, best friends, still enjoying life together and always there for one another for anything. Thank you for choosing to have me. After 7 years of having 3 girls, you could have just "deleted" me. You didn't. You could have had your life back, without another kid latching onto your apron strings. You chose to keep me, even when I was a bit of an 'oops'. Thank you. Between scrapes and bruises to slicing raw potato slices for my puffy-cried-out eyes, all because someone broke my heart, you always healed me and bandaged me up. Thank you. Between teaching me how to ice-skate on the pond, and afterwards taking me out to that Polynesian restaurant chatting over a pu pu platter, I leaned in and told you, "Mom, this is the best day of my life!" -Thank you. Between endless after school activities and religion classes, to trudging a...

Over the years I’ve written about my parents, mostly about my dad and his botched up Brooklynite accent and slang, but mom is a whole different can-o-beans. And despite her claims of being honest and how she never lies, I’d like to take this time out to dedicate this lovely post to my dear, sweet mama. Her mission: to take care of everyone she loves, even if it may be an unconventional route. She means well. She lies for the ‘good’ and never intentionally tries to deceive anyone. She’ll even convince you that all the “bad things” in life are supposed to be good for you. And sadly, she wins out and you just have to go by her set of rules of what’s best for you. So here’s a little post about my mom... It’s a cold winter day and my sister and I rush over to our parents’ house to warm up by the fire and have some of her famous pasta fagioli soup. I notice that the soup is thicker than normal, but still delicious. Normally, whenever I see mom make the soup, she gives me the first cup, usual...