When my eldest son was born, I panicked when it was time to take the baby home.

“How do they know I can take care of him?”

“I don’t know if I can take care of this baby!”

“There’s no manual, no guide, no directions. Don’t they know I don’t have a clue what to do?”

Luckily I had my mom to help guide me through those first few weeks, and she was a life saver, both to me and my son.

She gave him his first bath because I was scared to put him in water.

I agonized over whether to put him to sleep on his back or his stomach. Both scenarios had dire consequences, and I got up numerous times during the night to flip him over to his tummy and then over to his back.

That was almost 40 years ago, and he turned out just fine. When the second and third babies came around, I felt like I had the hang of things, but I never forgot the feelings I had with the first baby.

I thought about those days when our friends, Bridget and Dave, announced their first grandchild had been born.

When buying a baby gift, I thought I’d include a note to help the new parents through those first few weeks. Here goes:

“How can something so small…”

Something that small can scream loud enough to shatter your eardrums. At times, that endless screech will be like a sword running through your head.

Of all the things you imagined your newborn doing, how their voice sounded probably never occurred to you.

That oversight will come back to haunt you at 2 a.m.

Something that small can generate more dirty diapers than you ever thought possible.

You’ll change the diaper and, literally two minutes later, they are filling the diaper up all over again. Get used to it. That end of your newborn is the gift that keeps giving.

Something that small needs more clothes than a fashion shoot. There’s onesies for casual day-time wear, and you need at least a dozen because babies spit up all the time.

You also need booties, socks, hats, extra pacifiers and at least three back-up outfits for all trips.

You’ll need at least a dozen receiving blankets. Those are used to keep the baby warm and they come in handy to catch the never-ending flow of spit-up, leaking diapers and to put over your shoulder for the inevitable spit up that erupts like a volcano and with as much regularity.

Something that small will cause you to completely redecorate your house. For the first few days, you’ll think the breakables can stay on the coffee table.

Wrong.

Those have to go to make room for the extra diapers, boxes of wipe ups, stacks of diapers, clean clothes and empty plates you’ll generate because you can no longer eat at the table. You’re eating on the couch with the baby on your lap.

Enjoy those action movies filled with profanity now. Once the baby starts babbling, you’ll have to save those for when the baby’s asleep. Get used to watching Paw Patrol and Bubble Guppies.

Everything within arms’ reach has to be evaluated – can they swallow it? Break it? Chew on it? Smash it? Have an oversized wine glass filled with wine corks? Those now become choking hazards. That breakable joins the glass figurines and remote controls on the top shelf of the bookcase.

But there’s a bright side.

Something this small will cause your heart to grow more than you ever thought possible. You thought you knew what love was when you met your significant other.

That’s nothing compared to the love you’ll feel for this so-small person you’ve welcomed into your life.

Something this small will make you believe in miracles, and you’ll wonder how you ever survived without this child.

Something this small will make the biggest impact in your life, bigger than you ever thought possible.

That bigger-than-life feeling will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Something so small requires something big – your heart.

You’ll gladly hand it over.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Today is Thanksgiving, the day we share turkey, dressing and pecan pie.

As I’ve done for all my adult life, I can use Thanksgiving as a time to give thanks for all the wonderful people in my life and the many blessings I’ve been fortunate to receive.

This Thanksgiving, I’m going to turn the sentiments around. It’s time to stop focusing on my blessings and thank people who seldom get the thanks for what they do day in and day out.

Your neighbors. I’ve got great neighbors.

They check on my dog if it’s raining and always have a smile for us.

They’ve saved us when a water pipe broke, checked on our house when the alarm went off unexpectedly and will bring the empty trash cans and recycling bins up to our house when they know my husband’s out of town.

I need to thank them with a personal visit, not a text, and express how important they are to our whole block.

The grocery-store baggers. In the old days, sackers would bag up your groceries, load them in a cart and help you put the bags in your car. We’d tip them and everybody won.

For those of us who still physically shop in the grocery store, the baggers do the job but don’t get the tip.

Thank them for bagging your groceries. Make some small talk with them. You’re already standing there so why not acknowledge the person separating your eggs from the bread.

The librarians. I love the library. When I was a young girl, the library was my favorite place in the world.

I was in love with the wonderful smell of old books and bindings, the towering bookshelves and the thousands of books that allowed me to learn, relax and visit people and places from all time periods.

Librarians do a lot more than check out books. They shelve books we leave on tables, read voraciously, create seasonal displays and encourage children to become life-long readers.

I haven’t thanked them for their knowledge and willingness to recommend books to library patrons. They deserve thanks for keeping the library one of the last quiet sanctuaries in the world.

Behind-the-counter workers. People feel workers at the fast-food joint or the corner store already get paid so why thank them.

It’s their job, after all, to take our money, bag up our purchases and do everything fast and efficiently.

You are correct. But you could smile and thank them.. Look at life from their point of view. People are surly, grouchy and in a hurry. They stand there for over eight hours and have to smile at customers they probably want to punch in the face.

The mail carriers. Email and text messaging has replaced birthday cards and letters we put in an envelope and mail.

But there’s hundreds of postal workers who still put your mail in the right slot or box every single day, and we don’t even know what those people look like.

No matter how paperless we’re becoming, the U.S. Post Office is still delivering mail to you, whether that’s junk flyers or your paper copies of your credit-card statements.

Tape a note to your mailbox thanking your carrier for delivering your mail and your packages.

Our readers. I want to thank you for taking time to read my musings all these years, both in print and online.

If you’re a subscriber, thank you for supporting your local, home-town newspaper and the folks who deliver the paper to your driveway every day.

From my heart, thank you for giving me your time and allowing me to share my thoughts with you every week.

To as you ponder all of life’s blessings, consider those who seldom get thanked and make sure they know you appreciate them.

It’s a great way to start the Yuletide holiday season.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

There are silent, quick moments that jump out of my childhood. Not just the big ones like moving to Louisiana, getting a new sibling or when my dad’s toupee came in the mail.

Snapshots of ordinary days that, for some reason, cling to the top of my memory bank.

I’m the eldest of seven children. We’re stair-steppers – two years separates most of us, and we grew up sharing a lot of the same likes and dislikes.

Our parents taught us to stand up for each other, and even during our worst arguments, we stuck together.

One afternoon, my brother came home and said a kid down the street was picking on him. The four eldest children in the family – Jimmy, Johnny, Diane and I – immediately jumped up off the couch and walked down the middle of Evans Drive, our shoulders touching, looking for that kid.

We felt invincible alone but, together, we were more powerful than the Fantastic Four.

That afternoon was over 50 years ago, and we’ve all grown older since that summer in Baker Estates. As the eldest, the aches and pains should start with me, but we’ve all shared taking turns at the front of the gray-haired line.

My brother, Jimmy, was born a year and five days after me. We’ve always been close and he has a sixth sense when I need to talk to him.

He’s been an outstanding dentist all his adult life, and, as a result of craning to look into people’s mouths, developed arthritis in his neck a few years ago.

I didn’t realize how much the pain bothered him until I watched him complete a few chores at his house. He held his neck in a stiff manner, and it was obvious he didn’t feel great. But he’s not one to complain, in fact, none of us whine about the way Father Time is marching up and down our bodies.

That march is subtle at times – all of us wear reading glasses, and there’s a lot more gray in beards and hairdos than there used to be.

Almost all of us walk with a slight limp, thanks to a gift from the gene pool of having bad backs and sciatic trouble.

The youngest two in our family – Jeff and Donna – are still spry and healthy, and I wonder if they look at their older siblings like people look at flashing caution lights.

Time, however, keeps moving on, and there’s no way to stop the progression of wear and tear on our bodies.

This week, sister Diane had double knee replacement following years of painful walking. She was a runner in her youth, which didn’t help with the gene pool gift of rubbery knees, and she also spent years on the soccer field sidelines taking pictures.

But Diane’s one of the toughest and most determined women I’ve ever met, and she told me she’s going to do everything the doctors tell her to do to recuperate.

She’s following our mom’s lead. When Mom had knee replacement surgery a few years ago, she was walking down the halls the next day and completed all the rehabilitation exercises the doctor ordered.

All this at the age of 80.

Diane says if Mom can do it, so can she.

It’s in the genes. It’s in that mental snapshot I have of my grandfather walking to and from work every day following a massive heart attack, my Grandma Marguerite losing weight without complaining when she found out she had diabetes and my dad letting his granddaughter decorate his electric scooter when he didn’t have enough oxygen to walk.

Those memory snapshots seem like they happened yesterday. And perhaps that’s how life progresses – a series of memories that when strung together, convince us to be stronger than we believed we could be.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

We got some skills.

That’s what I believe most teenagers are thinking when confronted with an adult who starts every sentence with “Back when I was your age…”

Most of us who sing the entire theme song to “Gilligan’s Island and “The Beverly Hillbillies” believe we have the upper hand with these youngsters.

We got some skills too. We can drive a stick shift, we know how to change the oil in our cars and we know how to use a rotary phone.

But today’s teens have skills we will never master.

They can read what’s on their cell phone while walking down the street, all the while avoiding potholes, little dogs and other people.

When I walk through the mall, I bump into other people every 10 steps and I’m not even looking at a cell phone screen.

Not today’s teens. They have a sixth sense about who’s around them even when they don’t seem to be paying attention.

They can text blindfolded. I’ve seen teenagers put their hands in the front pocket of their hoodie and text someone nonstop while looking me in the eye and without once looking at the front of the cell phone.

I’m still trying to master text messaging. When I try and hit the comma, most of the time I accidentally hit the GIF button and all kinds of stupid emojis pop up on the screen.

I don’t have a clue how to use an emoji in a text message. That’s not a skill most of the people my age have mastered.

These teens find dozens of new artists within days of their releasing a song on the Internet. Back in the day – yes, cue the “Old Geezer” music – we had to wait for Dick Clark to play the song on “American Bandstand” and see what score the teen judges gave the tune.

We’d wait patiently for new artists to find their way on Kasey Kasem’s “America’s Top 40” radio program and hope the ones we liked inched their way from #39 to #1.

The internet, most notably Instagram and Snapchat, make instant stars out of the most obscure musicians who have some incredible music. And, let’s face it, those of us who loved the Dave Clark Five are still trying to figure out the difference between Instagram and Snapchat.

Today’s teens do not know how to use the card catalog at the library. They haven’t a clue what an encyclopedia is and if we mention the word “Childcraft” to them, they think it’s a new installment in the Harry Potter series.

But they can find information, cross check it, watch a video about the event and see pictures in minutes.

They don’t need to memorize history – it’s at their fingertips, and they can be up to date on everything from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Donald Trump faster than we can say Dewey Decimal System.

Young people can order dinner from their phone, have their meal delivered to wherever they’re standing and then pay for it with a credit card on their phone. If we were hungry, we scrounged around in the pantry for some stale Wonder Bread, jelly and peanut butter.

To have the ability and the skill to order Chinese food, a pizza or a Santa Fe salad and have it in your hands in less than an hour is something we might’ve seen on “The Twilight Zone.”

So before we bash this young generation, let’s give them some snaps for having some pretty incredible skills.

Because back when I was their age… never mind.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

The Internet is filled with slide shows and quizzes about the dozens of gadgets the younger generation will never know or remember.

I recognize every single thing.

I  know what a floppy disc was used for, I still remember waiting for the neighbor to get off the telephone party line so I could talk to my friend and I remember when there were only three television channels.

What brought that realization home was when a young person told me she couldn’t find her way because Google Maps was down.

Her friend had a hard time telling her how to get from Point A to Point B because she also relied on Google Maps for directions.

When we first moved to Fort Bend County almost 25 years ago, a friend gave me directions to Needville High School.

“Drive south on Highway 36. Turn left at the light,” he said.

“What light?” I asked.

“The light,” he replied.

So in keeping with accepting I’ll never understand video games or digital downloads, here’s a few of my observations about what the younger generation will never experience.

Home-fried chicken. I remember my mom putting a few cups of flour in a paper bag. She’d then season the raw chicken with Tony Chachere’s, add the chicken pieces to the bag and shake it. As kids, we took turns shaking the bag and then peeking in to make sure all the chicken was coated with flour.

The smell of that fried chicken was heavenly, and even better was the crispy skin on the outside. My arteries are cringing at the memory, but this new generation will never know the steps required to make really great home-fried chicken.

A real fireplace. We have a fireplace in our house. It has real gas flames. We flip a switch and the flames instantly start dancing behind a pane of glass.

Few youngsters will experience what it’s like to get firewood from an outside stack of logs – always on the lookout for scorpions, spiders and snakes. There’s an art to rolling up newspaper and tiny twigs to get the fire started.

Adding logs to the fire takes care because, too many, and the fire takes a long time to get back up to the place where you can hear the crackle and pop of the burning wood. The smell is heavenly as well and one does not experience that from the image of a fire on the television.

The family portrait used to hang over the mantle. Most of the time, it was a picture taken at church, courtesy of Olan Mills Portrait Studio. Now, there’s a flat-screen TV over the fireplace, and the family portrait is on somebody’s phone.

Home-made bread. There are still some who go to all the trouble of making bread. The last time I did that, one loaf cost me about five dollars, was as heavy as a brick and the kids wanted to know why I didn’t buy a loaf of pre-sliced Sunbeam bread.

I wondered myself.

The closest I come now to making my own bread is cracking open a can of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and serving them hot out of the oven.

There are some antiquated things this younger generation will never have to experience – waiting 10 minutes for the television or radio to warm up, not having anything to do on a sleepless night because the television stations all signed off at midnight and remembering telephone numbers.

Talking about fried chicken and home-made bread has made me hungry. Maybe I’ll look up those recipes in my dog-eared and well-used “River Roads” cookbook because I still know what a genuine plastic spiral-bound cookbook is used for.

As our country folk might say, I’ve got a hankerin’ for something good.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

The Astros band wagon’s rolling through Texas, and everywhere I look, at least every other person’s wearing an Astros T-shirt or hat.

The morning after the incredible Jose Altuve hit a double to clinch a spot in the World Series, I saw a man in the grocery store wearing an Astros American League championship shirt.

I’m guessing he was one of the hundreds of fans that waited in line the night before to buy anything with an Astros logo on it.

The Lone Star state’s no different than any other state, and Texans usually find a way to go over the top.

Most SEC college football fans are over the top – the Florida Gators, the Georgia Bulldogs and the Aggies. But they come in second to a college team whose fans go above and beyond every single year.

Those who support the LSU Tigers.

Game days find the Baton Rouge area covered with purple and gold, from tiger-striped chairs, jackets, hats, blankets, barbecue mitts, license plates, people’s shutters and their tailgating gear. Those who move out of state consider purple T-shirts necessary attire.

But Astros fever is about as high as I’ve seen it, and with good reason.

We love winners.

When we first came to Texas over 25 years ago, getting tickets to see the Astros play in the Astrodome was a cheap afternoon.

We attended quite a few games with our boys, and we always came home with some Astros loot – a foam pillow, a tote bag or a foam bat.

The tickets were inexpensive for a Major League game, and the boys could run up and down the Astrodome aisles because there weren’t too many people there.

The boys all wanted Astros hats and Dome dogs, and we could pick those up for a few bucks.

When my grandson wanted a Jose Altuve jersey two years ago, that youth shirt set me back over $50.

For a shirt. And an Astros World Series official jersey is over $140.

But that’s what happens when the winner emerges.

True die-hard fans aren’t surprised. They know this fandom happens every time their team wins. But what about the fan that hangs in there year after year with a team that has a zero in the win column?

I know about those fans because my dad was one of them.

For all his adult life, my dad believed in the New Orleans Saints.

They were one of the worst teams in the NFL and I thought that anybody who supported them had to be crazy.

But every summer, my dad would tell us that this would be the year. Yes sir, this would be the year the Saints would go to the Super Bowl.

And their record would be the worst in the league.

But my dad’s faith never wavered. He passed away before the Saints won the Super Bowl in 2010, but I had a feeling he was sitting in heaven’s bleachers yelling “Mais oui, I told you so!”

He never begrudged anyone who joined the Saints band wagon. He was always happy when fans saw the light and cheered on his favorite teams.

And so it is with the Astros.

People walking around with an Astros shirt on should be proud of their home-town team. They beat the odds, proved the naysayers wrong and stood behind one of the shortest players in professional baseball to watch their team go for a second World Series pennant in less than five years.

They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and the love Texans have for the Astros is about as big as it gets.

Just don’t tell an LSU fan.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

It’s been over 15 years since I’ve waited in an elementary school carpool line.

Fifteen years of forgetting the highs and lows of being an impatient parent in the long, torturous tunnel known as the drop-off line.

Lots of movies poke fun at the people who monitor the school drop-off and pick-up lines. The guards are usually blowing a whistle, redirecting parents going the wrong way and smiling at the children.

They’re strict about which way cars drive, and parents better not even think about cutting the line, driving in on the out driveway or taking too long to drop off their darling.

Those are all infractions that can get your tires slashed and, worse, get you shunned by other parents in the drop-off line.

My two oldest boys liked riding the bus. I didn’t question my good fortune, but that luck ran out with the youngest child. He claimed he got car sick on the bus, so I had to take him and pick him up from school every single day.

So I got to be quite familiar with the unspoken rules of the drop-off and pick-up line.

First, no lollygagging. When your car pulls up to where a teacher is waiting, your child better be ready to jump out of that car, backpack zipped, and lunch box in their hand.

No last-minute hugs and kisses, no time to comb their hair one last time and definitely no time to tie their shoes.

Because if you do any of those things, you face the wrath of all the parents in the line behind you, and they can be a ravenous mob, especially as their coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.

Afternoon pick-up lines are bit more laid back. After all, when you pull up to the curb and the teacher on duty opens the door for your child, the cool jazz music you enjoyed while waiting in the line evaporates into a burst of “guess what we dids” and “guess who threw up on the floor” stories.

Or they’re crying because they lost their lunch money, somebody looked at them with the “stink eye,” they have way too much homework and everybody hates them.

That’s when you’d gladly go to the back of the pick-up line and wait all over again.

I thought about all those memories when I was dropping my grandchildren off at Huggins Elementary one morning. I was new to their system, but no worries. I was an old hand at the drop-off line etiquette.

People coming from the north had to merge with people coming from the south. Two long lines had to merge into one line which would then go past the curb where smiling fifth graders would help children out of the car.

“This’ll never work,” I thought. I could see where the north-bound lanes would think they were lined up correctly and so could the south-bound lanes.

But people were civilized and the cars merged just as they’re supposed to do on the driving training video. People pulled as far up as they could, and smiling fifth graders were right there opening the doors and children were jumping out, ready to face the day.

And then it was my turn.

I didn’t pull all the way up because I was too busy making sure everybody had their backpacks zipped up and their lunch boxes were securely closed. I gave last-minute kisses and affirmative directions to have a great day and keep smiling.

Then I realized I was letting my grandchildren out at the last spot at the drop-off lane instead of way up ahead where I was supposed to be.

I thought for sure whistles would sound and people would lay on their horns, but none of that happened.

Teachers and fifth graders smiled and waved as I drove off, and I didn’t feel as guilty as I would’ve 15 years ago for being the kink in the garden hose.

I’m glad to see forgiveness is there for “that” person in the school carpool line. Now I just hope nobody asks me to pick the kids up in the afternoon.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Usually I don’t check my email on Saturday mornings, but I had a little time before heading out to run errands.

I’m glad I checked.

There was a message from my cousin Kathy that our cousin Pamela was in town for a few hours – did I want to get together at her mom’s house for a quick visit?

My first thought was my long to-do list for the day.

My second thought was a promise I made last year – no regrets. If I didn’t head into Houston and see my cousins, I’d get everything done on my list before 2 p.m. We didn’t grow up together, so it might not be a big deal to decline.

But I knew the right answer. Family’s important. I pointed the car toward Memorial City Mall and thought about the cousins in my life.

On my dad’s side, I have 25 first cousins, and there was always somebody our age when we got together for family crab boils.

Sylvia is a year older than I am, and we’re more like sisters than cousins. She helped guide me through the turbulent teenage years, and she’s still helping me cope with tough situations.

On my mom’s side, there’s also 25 first cousins. We spent many hours together at a grandparent’s house or an aunt’s kitchen, and those smells and scenes are as fresh to me today as they were all those years ago.

Kathy lives in the Houston area, and I get to see her from time to time. However, Pam lives in Virginia, and I hadn’t seen her in over 30 years. We call her mom Aunt Vickie, and I’ve looked up to her ever since I was a little girl.

Aunt Vickie was always on the go. She’d come over to my mom’s house in the mornings, pushing a stroller loaded down with all five of her children.

She’d bring along a loaf of freshly baked banana bread, articles she’d cut out of the newspaper for my mom and enough positive energy to fuel us for the day.

She ran marathons long before they were popular, wrote a booklet for incoming college students and taught business classes at the local business college.

My Aunt Mary is 89 and still going strong. As the eldest cousin, she was one of the first women in our family to go to college, and, as she put it, threw open the gates to equal opportunity for Lebanese girls.

When Pamela answered the door, I would’ve recognized her anywhere – the gorgeous ringlets so much like my Aunt Bev’s, the high cheek bones and her mom’s beautiful smile.

For two hours, Pamela and I sat at Aunt Mary’s kitchen table and compared memories about our hometown, the familiar smells in our grandmother’s kitchens, our children and grandchildren.

On the way home, I called my sister to tell her about the visit, and she looked Pamela up online. Pamela never gave me a hint that I was talking to one of the most prestigious educators on the East coast.

She’s a professor and chair at the exclusive William and Mary College. She’s written multiple books, was a Fulbright scholar in Dublin and has published numerous academic papers.

Bragging isn’t in Pamela’s DNA, nor is that trait evident in her siblings who are all highly-ranked professionals and scholars.

A true educator, Pamela quietly taught me something about grace and selflessness –take a genuine interest in the person sitting with you instead of figuring out what to say next. Our mothers, aunts and grandmothers taught us the same lesson, and they were all taught at the kitchen table.

I’m humbled and thankful to have five generations of strong, intelligent women as role models.

The next time an opportunity comes up to spend time with a remarkable woman, count me in.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Saturday morning at Sam’s Club isn’t exactly how I pictured spending my day off.

With 12-hour work days Monday through Friday, Saturday and Sunday are when I get the chores finished that had to wait during the week.

Changing the sheets on the beds, a little sweeping, getting the laundry under control, filling out lesson plans and grading papers fill up those two days.

I slip in fun activities for sure, but it seems work and the to-do list are never far from my mind.

That worry must’ve been evident on my face as I walked the aisles at Sam’s, pushing a big basket with snacks for our grandchildren and paper goods to last a few months.

I noticed a man walking my way. He was middle-aged, his eye glasses on top of his head and a slight spare tire around his middle.

He had a friendly grin on his face and, when he got to me, he slowed down and whispered something close to my ear.

“Smile. It’ll make you feel better.”

The encounter happened so quickly, I wondered if I’d heard him correctly, and he was gone before I had time to realize what he’d said.

One word kept rolling around in my head.

“Smile.”

I didn’t realize I wasn’t smiling until he pointed it out.

I slowed down and, for the first time in a while, paid attention to my face.

He was right.

My mouth was downturned and my eyebrows were tense as were my shoulders and back.

A total stranger jolted me out of the “woe-is-me” mood I’d been in for hours, maybe even days with a willingness to look at me, not past me.

I looked around the store, and most of the shoppers were wearing frowns, or at least looks of intense concentration.

The children weren’t smiling either, especially as their parents were hurrying them along so the shopping would go faster.

I’ve always thought of myself as a happy person, one of those glass is half full kinds. But it had been a long time since I really felt that way.

Slowing down, I relaxed my shoulders and put a smile on my face. That smile could’ve looked like a fake one, you know, the “fake-it-till-you-make-it” persona most of us project through life.

But the smile on my face wasn’t fake.

Neither was the smile reflecting a sunny disposition.

The smile was one of hope.

Because of that man, I could feel the tiredness riding on my shoulders lifting. I began to concentrate on all the good, wonderful blessings in my life instead of the dreary have-to’s.

And guess what. The smile did its job.

That stranger’s willingness to take a few seconds to whisper a few words of encouragement made me see the world through a different lens.

For the rest of the day, I made a conscious decision to smile at people in the store. To smile at the check-out clerk in the grocery store and especially to smile at my husband.

I even smiled at our dog.

They all smiled back, and although I was tempted to pass on the words that stranger gave to me, I knew my smile hadn’t taken a strong enough hold for me to be assured I’d keep the smile in my heart.

Anything worthwhile requires practice, whether it’s trying out a new sport, learning how to cook a new dinner or learning a new song.

And so I’m practicing.

Something as fundamental as happiness especially requires practice, and the best practice for living a life filled with joy starts with a smile.

So smile.

It’ll make you feel better.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Today is my mom’s birthday. Telling her age wouldn’t bother her, but she reared me to have manners, so I won’t tell her age, only that she’s a smidge over 80.

Delores Eade was born in Olean, N.Y., the second child to Henry and Albedia Eade. They were hard-working immigrants from Lebanon, and they welcomed their new dark-haired daughter with open arms.

She was quite a willful child growing up, or so the stories go. Her sister still has a scar on her hand from when my mom threw a fork at her and it stuck in her hand.

Then there’s the time she let go of the baby stroller carrying her little brother at the top of the hill and raced the buggy to the bottom. Luckily, she won.

Delores was a smart girl, but her parents were stubbornly old fashioned. Good Lebanese girls got married, had babies and lived near their parents. They did not go to college, but that wasn’t what my mom wanted.

She wanted to go to business school. So she told her father that her cousin was going and she supposed they weren’t as wealthy or as good as her cousin.

She knew her father could never accept that his children weren’t as good as his brother’s children, so my mom got to go off to business school.

A young coed, she met a handsome sailor in Virginia Beach one fun weekend. Old black-and-white pictures in an album show a vivacious woman on the beach with her friends, not a care in the world.

The young sailor was smitten with her, and she discovered, like her, he was Catholic and wanted a big family. They fell in love and thought they could figure out that she was a protected daughter from the North and he was a carefree, handsome son of a printer from the South.

They married and moved to the South, but when my dad’s father passed away, they moved back to the North, right next door to my grandparents. That lasted as long as it could, and then my dad moved his six children and his wife down to Louisiana.

It wasn’t easy. Her mother sent her hurtful letters about how she’d abandoned them, and week after week, my mom read those vile letters but never told us.

Instead, she went to work every day and then came home to prepare a hot dinner for her now seven children every single night without complaining.

I don’t remember being without anything I really needed, and I don’t remember my mother being gone – she was always there for all of us.

She stayed with an alcoholic husband who divorced her. But when he was terminally ill, she allowed him to move back in with her because she knew his grandchildren adored him and they needed each other.

She taught me it’s possible to forgive, even the most hurtful actions, and it’s possible to move forward and blossom, even when one thinks the roots are dead. She taught all of us to laugh at ourselves first and that there’s sunshine in even the darkest days.

She tells the truth, even when I don’t want to hear it, and having a hot cooked meal is the answer to almost all of life’s problems. We were never allowed to miss Sunday dinner with each other, and she always had a tablecloth on the table for those weekly meals after Mass.

She is adored by all seven of her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, siblings, nieces and nephews. Yet she takes that in stride, always claiming she’s the lucky one to be surrounded by such an incredible family.

So happy birthday, Delores Hebert Eade, mom, Siti, Sit-Siti and my best friend. I love you more than I can ever say. Thank you for not only being the best role model but for being someone who has shown me how to live and, more importantly, how to love.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.