Mimi and Duff

Here are my parent's on their wedding day. They were married at Sacred Heart Parish in Newton Centre, Mass. on a beautiful day in early September. The wedding reception was held at Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury. The Maid of Honor is my mother's cousin Ann, my Aunt Louise's daughter. Though my mother looks nervous in the earlier photos, you can see how delighted she is to be marrying my dad in the photo where they are dancing. Note Duff's 5:00 shadow, something he was always self-conscious about. In those days men were always supposed to be clean shaven. Though my dad always shaved before he went out at night, since it was his wedding day, he may not have had time for a second shave.

My mother was a fabulous story teller. She was also a very expressive writer. She had a lot of energy, interests and opinions.  Sitting still and writing things down was not one of her strengths. I had offered to set up a blog to help her get started writing down some of her memories. Of course, like my mother, I was never able to get around to it. In my defense, I never understood why Mimi  needed an official blog to write her stories down. In any event, here we are. It's now up to me to do the writing.

We were a very close family. My mother and I spent a lot of time together over the years (some would say too much, and I'm included in that some).

Though my mother's not physically here to help me with  my blog, doing all the things a mother likes to do -- taking over, correcting my posts, telling me I'm posting the wrong recipes, etc -- writing about things my mother taught me about cooking and life in general makes it feel, at least for a moment, that my mother's still here with me...just like she always was. And that makes me smile.