A-Musings

  (It’s the 2020 Holiday Season, and the 1 st anniversary of my beautiful, spirited mother’s passing is fast approaching.     For me, the   annus horribilis  that is 2020 began last mid December, when my siblings and I received “the call” summoning us to drop everything and jump on the next flight to southwestern Florida.     My mother had been rushed yet again to the hospital and was “not doing well.”     Shortly after her death I began to write of the profound and painful experience as her Medical Proxy, of having to make difficult medical and healthcare choices, of being responsible for life and death decisions of my most important family member.  At the time I considered it a burden, a painful and beautiful and awesome but crushing responsibility.  In hindsight, after so many months into the coronavirus pandemic, I now understand that as well as an enormous responsibility, it was indeed a privilege. An honor....

Hi, hope all’s well where you are. As I mentioned, it’s been a bit insane here.  Or should I say, insane-er. Things were actually beginning to look up – the icy winter wind abated and the weather turned exquisite, our covid numbers were getting better and better, Phase 1 relaunch was fast approaching.  And then, murder and mayhem. June.  Normally a joyful month in New York City, full of promise and sunny skies.  The month of proms and commencements and graduation parties, of young people celebrating their academic success, contemplating their future, anticipating a summer of fun.  A month of love, of weddings and anniversaries, of Father’s Day barbeques, of Puerto Rican Day and Pride parades. Of friends  gathering at outdoor cafes over cocktails.  Of my birthday! (Yeah, whatever.)     But this June kicked off the Summer of the Coronavirus.  Just for starters. After months of bearing the brunt of the pandemic - the nation’s “ho...

White pink mauve violet purple fuchsia scarlet burgundy.  Yellow orange red indigo.  And, of course, green.  Explosions of color bursting right outside the front door.  A saving grace, a soothing distraction, a brief escape from the monotony and frustration and fear wrought by this extraordinary moment of history, as something stealthy and insidious and unseen threatens our very existence. Perhaps for the first time in history, we are all in this together.  Has there ever been a truly global event on the scale of this pandemic, one rippling out around the world, affecting nearly everyone, everywhere?  Some of us more than others, granted ... Perhaps no where more than right here, at home in hot spot New York City. Upper West Siders like us can find simple but powerful gifts just steps away from our home.  Available to any and all of us, any day, all day, free of charge.  You see, we UWSers have the good fortune of living in primarily residenti...

I wrote this in honor of my mother at the time of her passing. Original version delivered at St. Joseph's RC Church, Hewlett, NY, on January 7, 2020; expanded version written during the month of January 2020 Growing up, I remember people who spoke of my mother always mentioned her toughness.  To my little girl brain this kind of made sense:  Tessie was born during the Great Depression into an enormous family of Italian immigrants, # 9 out of 10 children.  In the Rockaways.  How even as a child, she wouldn’t take any guff or BS from the stupid boys or the mean girls in the neighborhood who picked on her sisters.  How time and time again she would come home after another scuffle at school, her hair a tangled mess, her clothes torn, and Grandma Greco would fret, “Oh, no, Teresina, not again!”   From birth, Clairie, Tessie and Chickie, #s 8, 9 and 10 in the Greco family line-up, formed an unbreakable bond of sisterhood and friendship that lasted a lifetime. ...