Mom, I'll always remember....

our trip to Florida and watching a rocket ship go up into space and not realizing that staying at the Red Roof Inn was second class to the Disney resort. I got to wear wooden clogs and swim in the hotel pool…i was on top of the world just like Karen Carpenter would sing.

Eating really dry pork chops and succotash sitting on the couch watching The Love Boat.

Frozen breakfasts that were the tin foil TV dinner type things and cinnamon poptarts
Sitting on her bed in the morning, watching The New Zoo Review while she curled her hair and put on her blue (sky blue) eye shadow and her Go Go Boots. God, I thought my mother was the most beautiful lady on earth!

Always believing her when she said she slept on the couch at Bert’s and being too grossed out to think otherwise!

How you loved me even when i yelled 'i hate you' in front of the Pesident of Glicks Furniture and how you and Bert won't let me forget about it!! :)

Being a broke college student and not being able to buy the family Christmas presents. so I brought a candle, turned out the lights and made everyone pass around that candle and tell each other what they liked about the other one…and TO THIS DAY..my mother has never made fun of me for doing that!!

Her making the drive to Buffalo (many times) and she and I going to Kmart to just look around. We found ourselves in the wig department and we got in trouble for trying them on and laughing at each other while we modeled them .

Holding my mother’s hand to this day if we are walking through the mall.

All the embarrassing notes that she put in my lunch box..in JUNIOR HIGH school…that would say something like….’a little birdy told me to say HI’…or ‘guess who loves you’.

Oh, and when ever I say ‘I love you’..you always reply…’I loved your first’….

for teaching me the song..i love you…a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck’ and teaching my kids to sing it to!

For teaching me to say a prayer when ever a fire truck goes by!

Buying me Izod shirts and Papagallo shoes so that I would ‘fit in’ at Hartley. And letting me cry long and hard in your arms when I didn’t make the cheerleading squad there.

For making sure that I understood that the world is made up of all kinds of people. Rich/poor/black/white/yellow…etc. I never had a ‘white’ babysitter…NEVER!! Black, Israeli, Chinese….i learned to knit, eat kosher, appreciate ivory art and Karoke to Donna Summers way b4 Karaoke was real. She placed me in the only school at time that was considered ‘naturally integrated’. Our school was the REAL rainbow coalition and the neat thing about it was…until ‘Busing’ happened and all the dumb grownups got involved we kids had no idea that the world could be any other way!

Thank you for giving me the gift of my faith. You were a convert, after daddy was gone, it would have been easy for you to forget about it all….but you, in all your Cursillo chickdom made darn sure I was at those CCD classes…made sure that I met all of my Sacramental obligations…gave me a love for our faith that has brought me back from ‘the brink’ a couple times….and sustains me today! And best of all, set an example for me to follow with my own children!

I remember having to spend long hours in your bedroom watching TV (Carol Burnett, Sonny and Cher, Love Boat and Fantasy Island…and then having to turn the TV OFF when SOAP came on!! and can you now tell me why they had to call Mary Hartman TWICE??? Mary Hartman...Mary Hartman!!????) while you had Math Groups from Night College come over and play with these incredibly large calculators and practice these incredibly long math equations.

And remember being the proudest 10 year old EVER when you walked across that stage at Vet’s Memorial to receive your Bachelor’s degree! (I remember what we were Both wearing that day!- you had this pastel Indian type skirt/poncho deal on and I had green gauchos on with a matching vest)

For teaching me that i'm no better than anyone else...and most certainly no less!

Mom...
Thanks for being MINE!!!!