A Word From the Weiss

        On the third day of Passover, my true love said to me…
        “Matzah and gefilte fish… again?!?!”
        Just kidding. My husband would never say that. For one thing, he loves matzah, and virtually anything you can make with it. Matzah balls, matzah brei. Ditto gefilte fish.
        For another thing, I can hear him in the kitchen behind me right now, and without even turning around, I can plainly hear that he is spreading butter. OK, maybe not butter. Margerine. Smart Balance Light, to be exact. But whatever form of fat he may be employing, he’s clearly applying it, as I type these words, onto a piece of toast.
        Yes, toast on Passover. I am talking about toasted bread. (Does anyone actually toast matzah, which is pretty toasty already and has all those burnt-looking ridges to prove it? Unless, of course, you’re making matzah pizza, my Passover lunch of choice.)
        Anyway, as I was saying, my husband eats bread during Passover. Not to mention cake, pasta, and regular pizza, too. Then again, far be it from me to cast aspersions. After all, it troubles me enough that, although Passover is among my favorite holidays, it somehow manages to become, like most Jewish holidays and other religious celebrations, a bit of a competitive event.
        Holidays, after all, are family-oriented by nature, and families, mine included, tend to combine a wide range of both personality quirks and levels of religious observance. So do even the best and longest of friendships. And whenever people get together as a sizable group, these fundamental differences need to be accommodated in some way. Otherwise, all manner of conflict and chaos may erupt, as well as some real tears shed along with all of those symbolic saltwater ones. And what kind of a celebration would that be?
        
        As I mentioned last week, my family decided to do something a little unorthodox this year and hold our first seder on Sunday night, rather than Monday, when the Feast of Matzah officially began. My children and my niece were unable to join us during the week. And I would far prefer to be with them on the wrong night than celebrate without them on the right one.
        My brother and sister-in-law were more than happy to go along with that program, the better to avoid the inevitable holiday Jew jams while driving to and from Long Island. In turn, I was inclined to try to accommodate my brother’s personal preferences and personality quirks. My brother Joel, you see, according to the boasts of my late mother, was toilet trained at the tender age of six months, if not right in the womb. He thrives on order and is meticulously punctual.  Me? Not so much. OK, not at all. I’m loose. I’m lax. I’m more of a free spirit. I’m more than a little messy, and I’m almost always a little late.
        Unfortunately, transforming a messy person’s home into a passably tidy one is about as easy as losing weight overnight. You need to start early. But no matter how early I start, I soon realize that it wasn’t early enough, and that my house will never be neat enough.
        Couple that with all of the cooking required to serve the many courses of the seder meal, and you will understand that, come April, I truly have my work cut out for me.
        Being an avid Jewish cook, I always prepare everything from scratch, with the exception of the gefilte fish and the chocolate-dipped macaroons, excellent versions of which are readily available from our local Jewish supermarket, The Crown. I also insist on preparing everything fresh at nearly the last minute, whereas most sane people start cooking weeks in advance, even if it means risking serving brisket with freezer burn.
        But the real reason I’m ready to collapse by the time all of my guests arrive isn’t physical exhaustion. It’s anxiety. I’m riddled with fear that my meal won’t be ready right on time, or that my brother will notice that my house is more than a tad disorganized.
        This is one of the many reasons that I found myself barking at my daughter the night before everyone arrived, as delighted as I was to have her home for Passover, and ordering her to move the copious clutter she’d carted home with her from college. She stared at me in disbelief. “The people who are coming are just our family," she retorted. "They’re the same people who come every year. What are you getting so worked up about?”
        Perhaps she was right. After all these years, maybe I should just say to my brother, “You’re neat. I’m not. At your house, things are clean and organized. When we’re in my house, they won’t be.”
        The problem is that, despite our differences, I want everyone to get along. If my brother feels edgy in my house, we may not get along. Plus, he’s my older brother -- eminently positioned to make me feel inferior -- and I’m convinced that he sees any evidence of disorganization as a clear sign of insanity. And even though, much like Popeye, I yam what I yam, I don’t want him to know what I am, or to give him the satisfaction of thinking I’m in any way inferior to him, let alone in any way mentally deranged. I would rather bend myself into a pretzel – woops, make that an egg kichel – to prove that I’m just as neat, and just as normal.
        To my delight, as well as his, I managed to not only have the table set and almost everything cooked by the time my guests descended on us this year, but to be completely ready for everyone to sit down at precisely 5 p.m., just as promised. My brother, in turn, who remains mystified about how and when I became "so Jewish," then put up with my family’s inclination to read through a substantial portion of the Haggadah.
        And to my (somewhat free-spirited) eye, that is what celebrating Passover ultimately is all about: a series of strategic negotiations and conflict resolutions no less delicate and heated than the one once waged between Moses and Pharoah, as people jockey to accommodate one another’s quirks, proclivities, and levels of religious observance (or lack thereof).
       
        For example, on their way to a second seder on Monday night, my brother’s wife, who is not Jewish, confessed to him that she was extremely tired from having worked that day and having already gone through much of the Haggadah at our house the night before. She was not really in the mood for an instant replay. So, being a lawyer, and not-so-secretly sharing her preference to dispense with the religious rituals himself, my brother made a motion at his host’s house to waive the Haggadah reading and just chow down.
        Being a judge, his host promptly responded, “Motion denied. Any other motions?"
        Then they proceeded to read through the entire lengthy service all over again, Four Questions, ten plagues and all. So much for negotiation, although the conflict was indeed resolved.
        Meanwhile, on Monday afternoon, I stopped in to chat briefly with a friend whose house we were invited to for Tuesday night. I had an enormous amount of food left over from our seder and wanted to know what I could bring to hers. She told me that she’d heard from her husband that I’d already offered to supply homemade matzah ball soup. She looked horrified.
        “You can’t bring your matzah balls into my house,” she said flatly.
        While stating this, she was pouring boxes of matzah ball mix into a bowl. Not to cast any aspersions, but I make my soup from scratch using kosher pullets, and I make my matzah balls using my great grandmother Bubbe Chaia’s recipe.
        The problem wasn’t my recipe, though, nor how good or kosher any of it was. It was more fundamental than that. My friend gestured toward her kitchen counters, which were covered with paper. “Do you change your house over for Passover?” she asked with obvious skepticism.
        This is something people ask me repeatedly around this time of year. By this, they mean not only whether I banish chametz – all bread, cookies, cake, and pasta, as well as rice, corn, and all the other foods verboten during the holiday – but also whether I switch to special dishes, utensils and cookware reserved strictly for use during Pesach. Something that my friend, who happens to keep kosher year-round, does herself.
        The answer is that I don’t, in large part because I can’t. My husband, you see, although he also was born and raised Jewish, doesn’t choose to keep Passover, beyond attending seder meals on the first two nights. And although I might prefer that he match my own decidedly moderate level of observance, I believe that I have no right to impose my preferences on him, any more than he’d have a right to insist that I eat toast with him.
        Also, who am I to sneer at him or to say, “My way or the chai way?” The fact is that I didn’t grow up keeping Passover for all eight days myself. My family never had special Passover dishes, flatware, or pots and pans. Why, I didn’t even learn that you’re supposed to sell your chametz to a Gentile until our kids entered a Jewish day school. (That's when I became "so Jewish.")
        When our kids were still living at home, I’d go to the exhaustive effort of removing everything we weren’t supposed to eat from the cabinets and fridge. This not only meant respecting the holiday, but also preventing anyone from accidentally popping a Lorna Doone or something else tasty but taboo. But now that there are only the two of us, I save myself the trouble and just try to be vigilant.
        So now I realized that I’d have to keep the gallon of chicken soup I’d made, along with my fluffy matzah balls, to myself. I asked my friend what I could bring instead. (I’m a nice Jewish mom; I can’t go to someone’s house empty-handed.) The answer was that I couldn’t bring anything of any kind that I had prepared in my home. All that would be acceptable to her level of observance was that I bring ingredients for a green salad, provided that they remain in their original store packaging and that I assemble them in her home… making sure not to include any cheese in the salad or dressing, since the rest of her meal was going to be fleischedich. (That is, she was serving meat, whereas cheese is a dairy product, and in a kosher home never the twain shall meet.)
        Of course I was a bit disappointed. But I yam what I yam, and she is what she is, and particularly on Passover, that's the only possible way the twain could meet.
        Later that night, my family and I went to a seder at yet another friend's house. And I do mean later. One of these people’s sons has recently chosen to become extremely religiously observant. He's entered a Yeshiva in Israel, but was home for Passover and insisted on going to temple before the seder and then not walking back until after the sun had set. He had requested that the seder not start until he returned.
        The only problem with this was that these people have two other sons, both of whom were driving 100 miles back to their homes in Boston after the meal, along with their respective wives… and my daughter, who was returning to college there.
        Counting extended family and friends, there were 16 people attending that seder. Only one of the 16 was that observant. But in order to accommodate his preferences, none of us could begin wending our way through the Haggadah until around 8:15.
        That didn’t dissuade a second of these people’s son, who was conducting the service, from leading us through prayers and songs for well over an hour. When the actual meal finally commenced, another tense negotiation arose. These people have yet a third son, who makes little attempt to disguise some lingering friction with his mother. When the first course was about to be served, the mother made a brief announcement.
        The seder meal has so many courses, and there were so many guests, that she was going to need some help. Her tradition was that she would assign each of the women at the table a number, and when their number was called, they would help serve or clear. The third son instantly bristled at the mere mention of this plan. He took vociferous exception to it on two counts -- the concept of recruiting women only and the choice to call them by number.
        My friend staunchly stood her ground, though, reluctant to change her ways. The son looked apoplectic, and an awkward battle ensued.
        “Would anyone here rather be called by name than number?” my friend reluctantly asked. I wondered what to do to defuse the tension. Dare I raise my hand and defy her too?
        Meanwhile, the irate son continued taunting her. “What’s wrong with numbers, Mom?” he demanded. “Just think of the last time Jews were assigned numbers!"
        Fortunately, I was seated next to my friend and could whisper fairly discreetly. “You’re clearly upsetting him,” I said under my breath. “Why don’t you just drop it?”
        “Because it’s our tradition,” she whispered back. “We’ve always done it that way.”
        “Well, it clearly offends him. So maybe it’s time for a new tradition,” I replied.
        “Fine,” she announced to everyone. “Mary! Allegra! Please serve the gefilte fish!”
        Another family scene circumvented. Another Passover disaster passed over.
        No, it wasn’t exactly the parting of the Red Sea. And in the end, I could probably use a little coaching on negotiations with my own sometimes-testy son, who I have my own tendency to inadvertently provoke.
        This actually happened the next morning, when I awakened late to a call from him. The Boston contingent from Monday night's seder hadn’t taken off until well past 11 p.m. And being a Jewish mother, and given the amount of Manischewitz  I knew they’d consumed, I hadn’t been able to go to sleep until I’d received a call from my daughter at 1:16 a.m., assuring me that she had indeed arrived home safely… and that she had managed to put all of the home-cooked Passover supplies I’d sent back with her safely into the fridge.
        So I grew a little distraught when my son called to tell me of his own Passover experience. He noted that he had ended up holding an impromptu seder in his apartment the night before. Having no other offers, he’d invited over a Jewish boy and girl he knew who also had no plans, and they had improvised a meal.
        “Why didn’t you tell me you were having a seder?” I cried. “I sent so much food home with your sister. Now I feel terrible. All I gave you was some matzah ball soup and a box of macaroons.”
        “Mom, calm down!” he scolded me. “I was fine. Seriously. We had more than enough to eat."
        "But -- "
        "Mom! Had you only sent me back with the macaroons, it would have sufficed us. Had you only sent me back with the matzah ball soup and the macaroons, it would have sufficed us!”
        Dayenu, as they say. But that didn't suffice me.
        “But... I had so much brisket that I could have given you. Potatoes. Vegetables. Gefilte fish. Did you have to cook after work? What did you do for the main course?”
        Thus sayeth the Wise Son: “No problem! I picked it all up from Boston Market.”
        Oh! OK. It may not be kosher. It may not be my tradition. But my son likes to be independent and to do things his way.  It was also fine for his level of religious observance, and it worked. And if he ever invites me for Pesach, I’ll gladly eat it.
        Who knows? I'm open to negotiation. Maybe it could become a new family tradition.

A Word From the Weiss

        I know what to do with my mother’s mink, my grandmother’s garish diamond cocktail ring, and the pricey face cream my mother once hoarded as if it were King Midas’s gold. But I don’t know what to do with the granola.
       

        April is the cruelest month, and it seems like a strange, cruel coincidence that my mom died yesterday, April 5, the same week that her own mother passed away, only seven years earlier. But it is no coincidence that my brother Joel and I were by her side in her final moments, as well as for much of her last few months. After all, we’d watched her care with unrelenting devotion for her own mother throughout her own final years. My mother set an extraordinary example for me and for us all of what it’s like to be a daughter, son, mother and grandmother… and despite her well-meaning but often exasperating idiosyncrasies, a mensch.
        Everyone would like to believe that their own mother is unique and like none other – the best cook, best dressed, most beautiful… or the most difficult and annoying. (Not that I’m personally insinuating something like that… necessarily.) But I can assure you that there has never been anyone like Bernice Ann Lichtenstein Weiss Groves – better known to almost everyone as Bunnie. And there never, ever will be.
        So often you hear the expression that someone is not “the sharpest tool in the shed.” Well, my mother was -- THE sharpest tool in the shed. And she wanted everyone to know it. Even as her health declined, her mind didn’t falter one iota. Only a few days before she died, although she had grown extremely weak, she kept opening her eyes to utter random thoughts, from asking who would wear her mink coat to reminding me to pay her cable bill because it was due on the 31st. But one of her most pointed remarks – aside from how much she loved her children and grandchildren – was, “Remember that I was in Mensa and ‘that world organization.’” The latter was a reference to the fact that she had been listed for many years in the books “Who’s Who in America” and “Who’s Who in the World,” and she wanted to make sure I mentioned that in her eulogy. So I’m telling you now, before I forget: My mother was in Mensa and “Who’s Who.”
        My father owned a company that sold stainless steel. My mother was a teacher, but her real stock in trade was having a mind like a steel trap.
        Or, as she noted in another final thought that she insisted we relay to our kids, “I want you to know that you’re all brilliant because of me!”
        If you find that statement a bit immodest, try to bear in mind how my mother was raised. The second of two children born to Charles and Mary Lichtenstein, she grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in the shadow of her older, bigger and extremely bossy sister.
        Wars often break out between adjacent countries when there aren’t enough resources to go around. So began a lifelong rivalry between the Lichtenstein sisters.
        My mother, throughout her life, believed that her sister was overtly favored by their mother. There’s no question that my aunt was widely admired for her looks. Despite an ongoing battle with the bulge, glamorous Gloria was considered quite a beauty. My mother was better known for her brains, not exactly a priority for women in her day.
        My aunt was pampered with stylish new clothes and lessons in everything from piano to elocution. My mother made do with a cousin’s hand-me-downs and was permitted none of these privileges. For her, she always heard, there was no money left. 
        Once, following a heated marital moment, my grandfather divulged to my mother that Grandma Mary hadn’t actually wanted to have a second child. “Accident” -- that was one word of advice my mother never forgot. The saving grace to this Cinderella story was that she also sensed that she was her father’s favorite. And that meant a lot. Despite this one unfortunate indiscretion, my Grandpa Charlie was a kind, caring and brilliant man. A scholar who shunned the family business – he refused to become a rabbi, like his father and brothers before him – he chose to eke out a living selling insurance, which provided sparsely for his wife and daughters but allowed him plenty of time to read. To us, he would have been the family’s patron saint, if Jews had saints. Instead, my mother referred to him with reverence, using her highest form of praise: “He was THE BEST OF ALL THE GOOD ONES.”
        My grandfather instilled in her a lifelong love for learning, and a pride in her keen intellect.  If you couple this with the sense of inadequacy she got from her mother, it’s understandable why she was given to frequent self-aggrandizing outbursts like, “I’m so smart! I’m so brilliant!” whenever she came up with the right answer or found someone’s missing keys, or managed to divine the solution to one of life’s other little dilemmas.
        So I was surprised when she finally admitted one day that she was, in fact, not the smartest girl at New Utrecht High in Boro Park, as she’d often claimed. Although my mother was the president of Arista, the student honor society, Jeannie Fierstein was actually No. 1 in her class, “and I was right next to her,” she confessed.
       Jeannie married my father’s best friend Joe, and my mother married my dad, on June 5, 1949, only days after they graduated from college. A marriage made in heaven? Not quite. My father was obsessively punctual. My mother, chronically late. My father was a fastidious neat freak; my mother pathologically disorganized, and a pack rat like me. As far as my brother and I could see, they had only one key thing in common: They both wanted – no, had – to be in control at all times. And so began World War Weiss. Like the Thirty Year War, it managed to last for nearly three decades, more or less.
        But my parents were both intensely private people, so I’d rather look back now on the nicer moments and occasional entire evenings of calm. Chief among them were summer nights when I was little and we would drive to Jones Beach, on Long Island, after my father came home from work.  My brother and I would sit in the sand, “digging to China,” and our parents would stretch out contentedly on a beach blanket nearby, not arguing for once. My mother would have packed us a picnic dinner of her unbelievable, Southern fried chicken, saucy shrimp cocktail and fudgy homemade chocolate cake. This was, of course, before anyone had even heard the word “cholesterol.”
        Along with having a great figure until her later years – although she remained “exquisite and shapely,” by her own account – my mother was the world’s best Jewish cook. I used to believe that my parents’ turbulent marriage would have ended much earlier had it not been for her lamb chops. Of course, if she were cooking, just lamb chops would hardly have been enough. If four people were coming to dinner, she’d prepare enough for 20. She also would have roasted a couple of chickens, in case someone wasn’t in the mood for lamb, and she’d bake potatoes but also make rice, in case someone didn’t feel like potatoes. Plus there’d be at least four vegetables and three desserts. Then again, the one thing we loved best – and I fear I’ll never be able to recreate, although I have the recipe – was her famous mushroom barley soup.
        Most of her other specialties I have down pat. For after my parents split and my brother left for college, my mother and I spent years together. I served as her confidante. She was my biggest fan and the person most responsible for my becoming a writer.
        For one thing, she was given to an irrepressible, almost manic optimism, despite her often-grim marital circumstances. She saw everything in the most positive light possible. In response, I viewed the world through the opposite of rose-colored glasses. My lenses were tinted black. I strove to see things with fierce objectivity, exactly as they were, not as they might be once in a blue moon, or if the Messiah dropped by. Just to be safe, I generally erred on the side of negativity. It was the perfect perspective for a journalist.
        Also, I had a tendency from an early age to turn any experience, be it a day at school or a trip to the market, into a novella. My mother didn’t have the patience for it. After about 10 seconds, she’d blurt out, “Just get to the point!” So now I have all of these stories saved up to tell. (Don’t worry, though. I’m not going to tell them all now.)
        My mother’s mind worked so quickly that she, in turn, developed a prototypically Jewish habit of trying to beat everyone to the punch line by finishing their sentences for them. This was not a matter of being so in tune with others that she could readily intuit their mental direction. Quite the opposite. Never once, I’d wager, did she complete a single sentence for me with anything CLOSE to what I’d been planning to say. I might begin, “I really feel like…” and she’d quickly interject “Chinese food?” when I’d actually been about to say, “changing my name and joining the witness protection program."
        Of course, for her grandchildren she had infinite patience, not to mention affection. She was so close to my kids that she was privy to every detail of their lives and knew all of their friends, many of whom also called her Grandma Bunnie. She visited us frequently in Connecticut, and often joined us for trips to New York City, Boston or a country inn we loved in the Berkshires, where she would bunk with one or both of my children (and always insist on getting the saggy cot or pullout sofa so they could have the better bed).
        One of those last trips was to my son Aidan’s college graduation. My mother was incredibly proud of him and convinced that he was not only smart and brilliant but also destined to be successful in whatever he pursues. Then again, she used the very last chance they had to chat privately to lecture and grill him about… sex.
        So it’s little wonder that she remains very much alive for him and an ever-present force in his life. “I’ve been thinking about Grandma all day,” he told me yesterday, even before I’d reminded him that it was, in fact, her yahrzeit, the anniversary of her death. “Grandma gave the best advice. If I ever needed help with anything, she knew what to say.”  Yet he hadn’t been thinking about her because he needed any particular advice. “I just wanted to talk to her. Talk to her about everything. I just miss her,” he explained.
        Meanwhile, in honor of the day, of which she was painfully aware, my daughter Allegra scoured the supermarket for the cheese my mother always kept in her fridge. “Not that Grandma Bunnie was only cheese to me,” she hastened to add. “She was just so present to me, in so many insignificant ways…” Without conferring, we also had each purchased the ingredients to prepare what we refer to as Grandma Bunnie’s Chicken for dinner tonight. Memories just aren’t enough. We could all use a little taste of Grandma.
        I’m heartbroken that my mother won’t get to attend Allegra’s college graduation next month. As everyone knew, she adored my daughter and rarely missed one of her singing performances. Even after my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, she kept assuring me, “Don’t worry, I’ll be at Allegra’s wedding,” and I’d relax because I believed it was true, even though Allegra was only 15 when she first started saying this. But the last time that the subject came up, shortly before my mother died, she added the words, “even if I have to come from heaven,” and I cried because I knew that was true, too.
        Of course, beyond being a grandmother, my mother had a very active life of her own. A remedial reading teacher until she was 74, she taught thousands of kids with learning disabilities and other difficulties to read. She also was married for 50 years, although not all to the same man. She spent the last 20 of those with my stepfather, Sid – quite happily. Unlike my father, he let her have the one thing she needed most: her own way. But that’s not the only reason she adored him. She was such a resilient person that after he died, I often joked that her idea of mourning was wearing black tennis clothes. But the truth is that when he was gone, she began driving around with a photograph of Sid next to her on the passenger seat. She just wanted to be with him always.
        After he died, though, nine years before her, she also found countless ways to keep busy. She played tennis, did yoga, and belonged to two book groups, as well as – did I mention it yet? – Mensa. She ran a group at her temple called the MT Nesters, for which she was always organizing Shabbat dinners and other events. And after she met Bud, a retired surgeon, she became proficient at bridge, like him, playing almost daily.
        She remained so lively and upbeat that she didn’t want anyone to know she’d fallen ill. Instead, she continued to believe that she would soon recover and return to the many activities she loved. She was a lot like Scarlett O’Hara, the heroine of her favorite movie, who concluded despite countless calamities, “After all, tomorrow is another day!"
        It’s a bit of a conundrum that just when you need to prepare to let go of a parent, such an integral person in your life, your life begins to revolve completely around theirs. During the time that she was ill, I visited my mother weekly, took her to most doctor’s appointments and procedures, and often lived with her for a week or more at a time. And whenever I wasn’t there, I called her countless times a day.
        Once, when I stayed over to take her for chemo early, she bought a large bag of fancy granola she’d found on sale for my breakfast. I ate some so enthusiastically that she insisted on sending the rest home with me. Then, when I came a week later, she bought me another bag. And so on. I begged her to stop, saying I couldn’t keep up with her pace. But she didn’t stop.
        I still have three bags of this left in my cupboard, now well past its sell-by date. Somehow, I can’t get myself to eat it. But neither can I bear to throw it away.
        I’m not convinced that granola ever expires. It’s just that it evokes memories of too painful a time. It also reminds me of how persistent she could be. And how, as much as I loved her, and agonized over her decline, I still found her almost as irritating as ever.
        One thing that never failed to annoy me was that, starting when I was around 40, she began to give me expensive face cream as a gift for every conceivable occasion – my birthday, Mother’s Day (although she was my mother) – or sometimes for no occasion at all. The subtext to me, despite the sweet things she’d scrawl on the card, was that I wasn’t quite the beautiful daughter that she said I was, or my alleged beauty was fading fast.
        Then one day, a few months before she died, she called up sounding triumphant. The bad news was that Estée Lauder was discontinuing this product in favor of a new formula. The good news was that she’d scored the last six jars at Bloomingdale’s. “Three for you and three for me!” she declared. “Now you don’t have to use it sparingly.”
        All I can tell you is that I’m still using the stuff, but now very sparingly. Two years after she left us, I’m down to my last jar and a half. Smearing it on makes me feel loved, and like my mother is still here taking care of me (which is all that she was trying to do all along). But I don’t dare use it every day; I'm conscious that there won’t be any more of it coming my way.
        What I do make sure to do almost every day is to put on something of hers – a sweater, some earrings, a small onyx-and-silver pendant she wore on a silver chain. The mink, though, I’ve relegated to Allegra. It looks better on her, and I’m not a fan of fur. I’ve decided it was destined to skip a generation -- like the upbeat personality gene.
        Then there’s that diamond cocktail ring. I always thought it was a little gaudy when she wore it; certainly too glitzy for my taste. I put it on one day last year, though, and have yet to take it off. Wearing her things makes me feel like I’m taking her along for the ride. So one way or another, my mom’s going to be at that graduation, after all.
        Tomorrow will be another day. But sadly for us all, it will be yet another day, and the start of another year, without my mother. Like Aidan and Allegra, I miss her terribly.
        She was an unstoppable force. She was an exceptional woman, mother, grandmother, and mother-in-law. She was the sharpest tool in anyone’s shed.
        She was THE BEST OF ALL THE GOOD ONES.