No thanks....I'm full Gram! Oh well....okay just one more!

I am convinced that Grandmothers of the world are indirectly or directly responsible for every single good thing in the world. It’s absolutely impossible to act rude around them, to deny more food on your plate when they ask and to turn them away when they ask for kisses. They are the bringers of unconditional love and the one person in your family that should be above and beyond criticism or ridicule.

My Grandmother, Madeline, passed away a year ago and there is not a day that goes by where I do not think of her and the absolute joy she brought to her family and to the world. If meatballs were currency she would have been a millionaire.

Like all Italian mothers, Gram could cook. Cook like nobody’s business. Her sauce was the stuff of legends (as it should be) and she always, always thought she was cooking for a party of thirty. Even if it was just me and Amy coming over, the BIG pot would be on the stove and here would be this immaculate little woman reaching up to stir its contents.

“Hiiiii theeeere!” would be the greeting that welcomed you into her home. If you were a first-time visitor to her home, the first ting you would notice would be the amount of pictures that she had about her place. Her parents, siblings, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, relatives and friends were all represented throughout her place. If there was any free shelf or wall-space it did not remain that way for long. She was a one woman historian for anyone that wanted to know the history of our family. She embraced it and never missed chance to tell a story about a family member from the old country.

Her strength and fortitude should be mentioned as well. This is a woman who raised three children by herself. She was the mother and the father in the lives of my father and two aunts. She never complained about it or used it as any type of crutch or excuse. It simply was what life had dealt her and she’d be damned if she didn’t make the best of it.
Her reward for this was a fulfilling life filled with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She has family on both coasts and friends sprinkled in every nook and cranny on the planet. Her personality was contagious in the sense that she could make friends with someone almost immediately. It was never hard to get her to care deeply about someone or something, it always came natural. Her love was unconditional, unwavering and unending.


Gram & I - June '92.

If you knew her, no matter how remotely, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you did not know her, believe me she would have wanted three things for you:

1. To see you smiling.

2. To have you call her.

3. To have some more food (no matter how full you were).

Now #3 usually took care of #1. For me, it was #2 that will always sit uneasy. I always had the opportunity to call her but only took advantage of it a fraction of the time. Yes, our family made light of the way that she answered the phone and how she spoke to us, but it was always, always done out of love and with the unspoken thought of “man, I should call her more often” going through everyone’s head. We teased her about the amount of tin foil she had in her apartment. I mean the amounts of it would make your fillings hurt if you knew. I’m sure she could pick up radio signals from space in her refrigerator, but I digress. The point is, we loved her for everything that she was…absolutely everything.

Hers was the kind of life that deserves to be remembered with love and smiles. Her last thoughts, I am sure, were about how she could help somebody with something. She is directly responsible for every good deed that I have done or will do .

We love her, we miss her and will always have her with us.