My mother would consider halting my college tuition payments for posting this online, but it's the only picture I could find of her as a child. She's on the bottom left, with the super-fly haircut and the shy smile. Right now, she and my father are in Italy, and it's awful to not hear her voice every day, with its slight Brooklyn accent and reassuring tone.
When I was young, I would climb into bed and cry while I listened to my mother downstairs, closing cabinets and folding clothes and making sandwiches for the next day's lunch. My dad would come in, bewildered and trying to figure out why I was sobbing, but it wasn't until my mother came upstairs and tucked me in that I stopped sniffling and fell asleep. I'd always been like that, colicky and screaming unless she (and no one else) held me. My mom would carry me for hours as a baby, dancing around the living room to Gloria Estefan's "Here We Are," and somehow managed to keep her dental office running smoothly.
I love you, Mom.