Bobbi Ann Duffy, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Bobbi Ann Duffy
Remembering 5/6/2016 7:28:21 PM
Sometimes I think of my childhood and my grandmother who died more than forty years ago. Mother's Day is one of those days.
There are times I really pity some of the younger generation because they have never had the experience of living in a two or three generation home. When I remember my childhood there are wonderful memories. I was blessed with these memories because I lived in the same house as my parents and my grandparents.
My heart still can see the sight of my grandmother and I cooking Sunday dinner for the family,(all 15 to 18 depending on how many showed up). For years I was the only child at the table because I was the only grandchild, niece etc.
The food on the table was simple, italian food, that my grandmother had learned to cook as a child. Her mother, Momooch, was from the "old country". So the cusine was almost always Italian. My grandmother, or Nana, as I called her, taught me to cook things my mother never mastered.
The one recipe I loved to work with was Eggplant Pamasian. To this day, I can't eat it at a resturant because it's never as good as Nana's. As we worked cutting the eggplant, dragging it through the egg, then the breadcrumbs and finally frying it before placing it in a cassarole dish with sauce and cheese, she would tell me stories about my mother's childhood and my Uncle Frankie who died before my mothe was born.
She was only 16 when he was born. He was a big baby weighing in at over ten pounds. He died before his second birthday. Nana even had pictures of him in his casket which was kept in the house until enternment. It was a common practice in the 1920's. I know to some of you this will sound like a nightmare producer for a young child, But Nana always said I was born old. What she meant was that I am an old soul, who has experienced death of loved ones in many life times. I don't know if she was right about that, but I never had a single nightmare about my uncle Frankie.
In fact, I think it help me knowing about death by enabling me to deal with the deaths of many loved ones over the years.
So I pay homage to my grandmother, who raised her own nine children and then helped raise me. Nana I still remember and still love you.
