You guys are probably gonna think I'm being vain here but I'm going to post my e-mail tribute that I sent out to family and friends.
I think she deserves it.
To family & friends
I’ve dreaded this day for quite a while now but the inevitable has happened and our beloved mother is dead. She passed peacefully away at 6:35 AM this morning at Artman Lutheran Senior Home after falling seriously ill this past Monday.
She was fortunate enough to be surrounded by all of us, her adoring grandchildren and US cousins all week long, which would have brought her great joy. Her family was the oxygen that sustained her, her whole life, and kept her going till the end.
Hard to believe that the
Cockaroach …
it’s a term of endearment in the family; she had a permanent tan in her youth and it seemed for a quite a while there that nothing short of a nuclear blast would kill her 
… has passed on to her maker. While I find solace in the fact that her suffering is now finally over, it’s still hard for me to let go.
Close friends and family know that I took my que from my dad in life but my mother’s love & influence on me and my sister can’t be overstated enough. My thirst for knowledge, culture, literature, the finer things in life, manners, abstract thinking and especially my passion for music is all because of her. We literally learned how to read and write together when I was 4/5 years old.
She was my study buddy.
From my earliest memories of her, down on the farm in Sciacca, Sicily you could see how tough she was and hard-working as any man I’ve ever met, including her own brothers and my dad’s brothers, without ever once losing an ounce of femininity with that beguiling smile. Helping the men with the wheat harvest, hauling bales of hay, sloshing around in her floods doing chores around the farm, managing the chickens & pigs, bent over picking cotton with the scorching sun bearing down on her back. Only to get back home and cook a 5-star meal that would leave you licking your fingers and begging for more. Time permitting she would literally make our clothes from scratch, with a bundle of cloth & buttons; from a pair of pants to a whole suit. And at all times singing, like she had just won the lottery.
What a gal. My father’s father once remarked loudly at a family wedding with pride and conviction that she could outwork any of his own sons and probably the rest of the men at his table or anyone else in the banquet hall for that matter.
No one disagreed, as they nodded their heads in agreement.
Complex woman, no doubt. She could be gentle as a lamb and fun loving with us and especially with her grandchildren, constantly hugging & kissing them like she was afraid they would disappear. Nothing gave her more pleasure than to have the whole family gathered around the dinner table laughing loudly and being boisterous and of course, complimenting her about her cooking. In her eyes, you could do no wrong. But she could also turn vicious as a viper if crossed or felt her brood was endangered. You loved her but u didn’t cross her,
not if u knew what was good for u at least.
The only thing missing was a set of sergeants stripes. Unlike my father who was more of a happy-go-lucky kind of guy,
Ciccina could be a bit more discerning of folks, for better or worse. She was immune to bull$hit, including mine.
Well, maybe with the exception of my dad.
And she had dreams for her children, big dreams. No sacrifice was too big or too small for her when it came to my sister and I and at the same time she pushed & pushed us to be better, work harder and smarter, no matter how young or old we were.
The ultimate nudge.
There was no days off for her in life it seemed. Until my father died, she was like a shark, constantly in motion, looking for prey.
She often told a parable that the devil invented work to make men/women sin and then seducing them to be lazy and corrupt to avoid it. Well she was dammed if she was gonna ever let us fall into that trap, she made sure of that.
Thanks Mom.
Peace Ma … we’re gonna miss u more than u know … big time.
Thanks for your indulgence.
