佚名/Anonymous
Mama’s face was radiant with pride. I knew that everything we had achieved or would achieve was because of my parents.
When we were young children, my mother was, especially, our mentor. Not until I became an adult did I realize how special she was.
Delight in Devotion. My mother was born in a small town in northern Italy. She was three when her parents immigrated to this country in 1926.They lived on Chicago’s South Side, where my grandfather worked making ice cream. Mama thrived in the hectic urban environment. At 16，she graduated first in her high-school class, went on to secretarial school, and finally worked as an executive secretary for a railroad company.
She was beautiful too. When a local photographer used her pictures in his monthly window display, she was flattered. Her favorite portrait showed her sitting by Lake Michigan, her hair windblown, her gaze reaching toward the horizon. My mother always used to say that when you died, God gave you back your“best self”.She’d show us that picture and say,“This is what I’m going to look like in heaven.”
My parents were married in 1944.Dad was a quiet and intelligent man who was 17 when he left Italy. Soon after, a hit-and-run accident left him with a permanent limp. Dad worked hard selling candy to Chicago office workers on their break. He had little formal schooling. His English was self-taught. Yet he eventually built a small, successful wholesale candy business. Dad was generous, handsome and deeply religious. Mama was devoted to him.
After she married, my mother quit her job and gave herself to her family. In 1950，with three children, Dad moved the family to a farm 40 miles from Chicago. He worked the land and commuted to the city to run his business. Mama said good-by to her parents and friends and traded her busy city neighborhood for a more isolated life. But she never complained. By 1958，our modest white farmhouse was filled with six children, and Mama was delighted.