Some of you whom are fortunate to still have your Mother around, do call
her tomorrow or spend time with her. Enjoy her Special day. Those of you,
whose Mom passed away, think about all the fun times you had with her.
Hopefully, it will not make you sad, but smile. Maybe, this, will take
you down Memory lane?
Since, I have to work tomorrow, we are unable to get together with
Darrell's Mom and my Mom, lives over 2,000 miles away. We had a nice chat
with each today.
For now, sending this to you all. I know, some of you subscribe to
heartwarmers and Petwarmers, but I am sure some of you don't. For those, who
don't receive these in your e-mail box, Here you are. If you are a Mother,
have a good day. take care and look below.
The best thing to happen to mornings since the Sun!
Your morning thought for the day:
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy,
they are the charming gardeners who make our
souls blossom.
-- Marcel Proust
Happy Mother's Day!
We hope you have a wonderful celebration this Sunday.
Meanwhile, if you enjoy food and a good story, this Heartwarmer
is for you. When you're done, both your mouth and your eyes will be
a little watery. If nothing else, you'll have an appetite!
Thanks, James, for your contribution to Heartwarmers!
EATING LEMONS WITH MOM
by James Colasanti Jr.
My home has always been a very special place to me and the
kitchen has always been the heart of my home.
I can remember the day before I left for college, August 1967,
sitting at the old red and white Formica topped kitchen table with my
mother, Mary.
Every Sunday afternoon each of us had a small dish with a big
fat fresh lemon, a knife, and a shaker of coarse salt. Sometimes the
lemons were picked from our own lemon tree and sometimes they came
from the store. But they were always the biggest and the juiciest
that we could find.
My mother's old world wisdom was, "If life hands you lemons, sit
down, consider the situation, take out your paring knife, peel away
the problem, sprinkle it with coarse salt to make it more palatable,
and eat them. Your life will always be better."
And she was right. My mother had come from Sicily in the 1920s.
Her dreams of becoming a high school English teacher never
materialized. Due to financial circumstances she was forced to work
in a garment factory to help her family with expenses.
But aside from being an expert leather coatmaker, she also
became the best cook in her family even outshining her three sisters
in Italian cuisine.
There wasn't anything she couldn't cook -- three-meat lasagna,
Italian bread, pizza from scratch, soft-breaded veal cutlets, and an
array of different vegetables and fruits -- most of which came from
my father's garden.
She was also a real whiz with a pressure cooker. My father
would bring in ears of corn fresh picked from the tall cornstalks in
the back yard and in minutes we would have steaming hot sweet corn
drizzled in fresh homemade butter. Each meal was different and each
was just a little bit of heaven.
Often our neighbors witnessed my mother and her sister, Tina, on
their hands and knees manicuring the lawn with a small knife and a
large brown paper bag. What they were really doing was rooting out
the dandelion greens from the grassy yard. We would have big plates
of salad made from dandelions (a great source of vitamins and iron)
saturated with a homemade Caesar dressing made from red-wine vinegar,
anchovies, and extra-virgin olive oil. And this was all free for the
taking with Mother Nature providing the ingredients.
In addition to feeding her immediate family, mother always made
sure the animals were fed and we always had a lot of animals. Though
we lived within the city limits, we had chickens, rabbits, cats, and
a dog.
When I was a teenager, our family dog, Butchy, passed away at
the ripe old age of 16. It was absolutely devastating to everyone
because she had grown up with me and she was a real member of the
family. She had been my protector and my companion for all those
years.
My mother knew in her heart that my father could not stand the
sight of the empty dog house for long. One day without telling
anyone, my father went to the animal shelter and adopted a 2-year old
Collie-Shepherd mix and named him Pal.
Pal was my father's dog. He listened to him and to him alone.
He obeyed my mother because she always brought the food dish but he
was always at my father's side.
Pal had to learn to eat like an Italian. We never fed our cats
and dogs "bagged" food. They always ate what we ate and there was
never a thin dog or thin cats at our house.
Because I was their only child and the only family member to have
gone to college, there was a real celebration the night before I
left. For a going-away treat, my mother made her Sicilian
country-style Italian meatballs with homemade pasta. It was a divine
meal that would remain in my mind and my heart forever.
The next day, we stood in our front yard waiting for my ride to
college, the old 1919 three-story gray frame house dwarfing us as we
stood silently. Although I am not a very tall person, I towered over
my parents who were barely 5-feet tall.
As the car approached we said our "goodbyes" and I shook hands
with my father. It was the Italian-thing to do.
My mother grabbed me, hugged me, and whispered in my ear, "Go
make great memories, but make sure you make them with dignity so you
will always be proud to look back on them."
As the car pulled away I turned and looked back.
There they stood -- the smallest couple in size, but in stature
they held the biggest part of my heart.
-- James Colasanti Jr. <onegooddog1 at bellsouth.net>
____________________________________________
James is a lead clerk with Barnes & Noble Booksellers. A past
president of the Animal Rescue & Foster Program of Greensboro, James
shares his home with a housemate and 13 dogs. His stories have
appeared in New York Dog Magazine, Dog & Kennel Magazine, Best
Friends Magazine, Pasta Magazine, Greensboro News/Record, and also
written a number of stories for Petwarmers, our sister publication.
____________________________________________
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