She was born just prior to the depression to a flower shop owner and his wife. The couple welcomed her into their lives and had her mom's mom live with them to help take care of her. Her mom had lost her own dad at six in the mines and her grandmother had raised her and her brother herself by taking in sewing.

She grew up in New Haven, CT and was an outstanding student in elementary, high school and eventually college. She attended a four year private Catholic girl's school in New Haven on a full scholarship due to her fantastic grades.

I remember her telling me that during the depression, she would often come home to find strangers sitting in the back yard eating food, (that being a loose term, it was usually soup) that her mom had given them. She remarked once that it was a rare day that she didn't find some stranger thanking my Nana for feeding them before they left in desperate search of work.

After graduating third in her class, she married my Dad. She had four children. Me, my three brothers. We lived nicely. My Dad did a wonderful job providing for us and we never wanted.

I think the right wing would probably have called her a liberal elitist. She worked as a librarian prior to marriage and read voraciously. She was instrumental in the construction of a new library in the town where we were raised and it was taken for granted that all of us would continue our educations by going to college for which they would pay. We were constantly told to read, listen, educate to try and make a better world.

She was a devout Roman Catholic. She believed in the sanctity of the Church, in marriage and sacraments. She also believed that the Church had no right to discriminate against homosexuals, being one of the few of her generation who believed that homosexuality wasn't a sin or a choice, but a biological occurence. She despised bigots. She called where she was in life a 'biological accident', and railed against those who sought to discriminate based on station in life.

She worked tirelessly for social justice. I remember as she was getting older, and my dad's health failing feeling so worried when she would get a call from a young mom who was out of diapers or formula. These calls often came at night, so she would get out of bed, get dressed and meet these desperate folks at Stop and Shop to provide them with another month's worth of necessities. The Church had a social justice committee that she was in charge of, but she often didn't submit the receipts, and she often didn't disclose whom she had helped because there were some members who thought some of these women were 'double dipping', in other words going from church to church for help.

My mom didn't care. She said to me once that if you were desperate enough to call the church for help, the help should be given no questions asked. It was humiliating enough to stand there and ask, a person needed to keep their pride.

The lessons she taught us have shaped who I am. I got married, moved away, had a family. I ran the food pantry at my church and when I got the requisite lecture on the 'double dippers', I just smiled, nodded and remembered my mom's words.

She was appalled at what happened to her Church and her Country. I talked to her three times a day, usually and she would always start with 'did you see what that fool did today?' That fool being George Bush. We would rant about how awful he was, and how awful the right wing was for quite a while before moving on to family news and such.

She died the way she lived, peacefully. In her sleep. Which was wonderful for her, terrible for us. After her death, the Church we all attended as kids and from where she was buried erected a marble bench in her honor and yearly awards a parishioner with an award in her name for her work with social justice. I am so proud of her.

She was a liberal. If living your life to help others in need makes you a liberal, count me in. And, if being a liberal makes you bad in the eyes of the republicans, double count me in.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I miss you.