Happy Mothers Day in heaven Mom.

Pictures of my mom and her family 18 years ago I spent my last mother's day with my Mom. She was battling breast cancer, she had a mastectomy about 10 years earlier, had went through chemo and then here it was 10 years later and it returned in her bones. She was staying with my Aunt Marge in Cleveland, Ohio, where she was receiving treatment at Cleveland Clinic. Several of my siblings came from Michigan and we met there to spend the day with her.

I have many memories of my mom, she equipped me with the basics that have stood the test of time....

Mind your own business

Treat other people the way you want to be treated

Work hard (she was a good example)

Endure through the hard times

Family is most important

Looks don't matter

Think the best of people (even if they don't live up to it)

God is real

I would not say I had the closest relationship with my mom, I have 5 siblings and they would all fight to say they did, and it would bee true. My mom and I had a difficult relationship, I always knew she loved me, but many times I thought she did not understand me and was not even sure she liked me, but I knew she loved me, she was a great mom. She had a difficult life, her parents came over from Sicily through Ellis Island as teens. They married in Cleveland Ohio, started a home and had 8 children. 1 died as a toddler, all my moms siblings married Italians and remained in Cleveland. My mom was the baby, her mother died when she was 11 and her father died a couple weeks before her wedding. She married a German, she always said she married him because he threatened suicide if she didn't! She came from a family of screaming Italians, where family was what counted, and children were a blessing......my dad came from an affluent family, his father was an engineer that designed bridges. They were very stoic people and children were to be seen and not heard. You can already guess the problems. Well 6 children and 30+ years later they divorced.

My dad loved the upper peninsula of Michigan, his grandparents had a cabin there and he would spend summers there as a child. His goal was to live there, the problem was there was no way to suppport his family. He never gave up, and we did live there. My moms life was hard.... alot of hard work, a difficult marraige, a long way from her family, but she endured, and in that taught us all valuable lessons.

She was loved by all that knew her, she always had the coffee pot on and always had another place at the table. She had an antique shop and people would come in just to spend time with her, she was a very gracious lady. She would always take up for the underdog. I am sure we would all be surprised to know her many acts of kindness that she did without anyones knowledge, just because it was the right thing to do and she could.

When she was mad you did not want to be near... she smoked all her life and as kids we knew if she was biting the end of her cigarette we were in trouble!!! And she could run, even if she was pregnant, I found that out the hard way! I have a million memories I could share and my siblings maybe will add them to this, but the bottom line was she loved her family.

She died May 29th, 1989 in the intensive care unit at Marquette General Hospital, surrounded by her children. Her last words were "Lord Jesus, this is enough" and she took her last breath and woke up in heaven. I'll see you there Mom - I love you!