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She would often say, “money can’t buy what we have”. She never went on some fancy trip, never ate at a fancy restaurant. She didn’t have to because her kitchen was the best bistro in the world and making food for everyone who walked through her doors was better than any vacation she could have taken.
She didn’t care for material things, just treating everyone around her with love and respect. She was accepting of everyone and everything as long as they were nice and God loving. She didn’t care if you were black or white, gay or straight, from Parma or Pluto, when you came through those doors, you were family.
Can you only imagine how many asses sat on that couch? More than an RTA truck stop on a holiday weekend. Everyone was welcome, and I mean everyone!
Perhaps the thing that made her meals the most special over the years is that they were eaten without phones around. No one had a cell phone and simply sat, ate and talked. It was family, it was love! Too often now a days, people don’t communicate. Lord knows that was never the case in the DeLuca home. Talking loudly for most people, was whispering to us. We are Italians, we are loud and proud!
There was no better showing of this when nearly 50 plus people crammed in her ICU room earlier this week to all say goodbye at once, and no one left her side until they had too. She was kind hearted and had the gentle touch that only a Grandma could have.
She was there for all of her grandchildren to be born, and most of her great grandchildren as well. In the delivery room most times. So many morning masses at St. Patrick’s with her grandchildren. She would write in a journal daily, and never let her emotions towards any family pain cloud her judgement or weaken her strength.
Her having a journal encouraged me to have a journal as a kid. Years later her and I would take turns writing to our pen pal cousin Jim in Montana. We’d often laugh at how similar his letters were structured compared to ours. It was weather, current events, something new, something old, and love every time.
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