Happy Birthday Concetta Casertano

My grandmother would have been 92 today. She passed away in July, 2006. We all assumed that Nanny Connie would be here forever. I had the privilege of living with her for most of my life, and if I didn't live with her, she always lived with my mother and then my sister, so it was the next best thing. Here are a few of my favorite Nanny Connie stories:

"Me and my brother used to hang out all the time, I was a tom-boy with buck teeth. We would get home late, and we would take turns who would go in first, because the first one in got the beaten, and the other one got to run into their room."

"When I met Jack, he was working at the grocery store across the street from our house. I used to whistle to him out the window...YOO-HOO...YOO-HOO....and he would turn as red as the tomatoes that he carried in the "bundles". He used to flick his cigarettes in the street. When we finally met, I asked him if he smoked, and he said no. That was the first lie...."

"My sister Louise thought she was a queen. She didn't have to do anything around the house because she worked. I had to scrub 8 floors every Saturday while she went shopping" (I have to leave out the bad words...LOL)

"One day my mother went to the butcher, and she took too long, so my father went looking for her and she wasn't there. When she got home, he asked her where the he** she was. WELL...she took the raw meat and WASHED his face with it. "I was at the butcher! Where do you think I was!" (Italian women don't play) "

My grandmother was a beautiful, wise, well kept woman. An amazing wife. Laid her husbands clothes out everyday, his juice and meds were on the counter waiting for him when he woke up, and she had energy at her age that I can only wish I get half of if I even make it that far. She was forever whispering to the Lord. She had no fear of death. She knew Heaven was awaiting her with open arms. I miss her everyday of my life. I miss laying on her lap, and her rubbing my hair. I miss her pulling my hair while she was dying it because I wasn't sitting still, and her smacking me when I got loud with her for dying half of my face. I miss her and my mother bickering about anything and everything. I miss hearing her say "Marie...your losing your respect Marie" when my sister did nothing but take care of her...always. She hated long hair, so she would ask me constantly "Colleen, when are you going to cut your hair? Are you ever going to get a hair cut? You look "Shangatha". I miss her chasing all of her Great Grandchildren with her shoe, ready to POP them like it's nobody's business, and the next minute telling them how handsome they are. I miss everything about her. Happy Birthday Nonna Cungiatine.....