On Sunday I was reading Parade magazine because I love to see what kind of tricky questions people come up with for Marilyn Vos Savant, the woman with the highest IQ in the world or maybe it’s the United States. I’m not sure. Anyway she’s obviously very smart and knows important things like what sequences of certain numbers mean or how far a train goes if it’s going 55 mph for 6 days…you know, real practical information that you can use in every day life. But I digress.

So I’m reading Parade magazine and there is an article that asks the question if you could spend one day with someone you love who has passed away, who would it be and what would you do? And as I looked at the question, I immediately knew my answer.

In the last nine years, I have lost three of my grandparents. I miss them all dearly, but the person I would want to spend a day with would be my Mema, my daddy’s mama.

By the time I knew Mema she was already older obviously. She was plump, had graying hair that she kept dyed black, and wore a lot of polyester pantsuits, but in her younger days she was a real beauty. I have her wedding portrait hanging in my hallway and she is so thin, young and beautiful. She was also a true fashionista back in the day complete with great hats, purses and shoes. But by the time I came along, she had raised three boys and lived a lot of life so she wasn’t necessarily thin and fashionable but boy, she was comfortable in her own skin.

I can’t think of Mema without remembering the way she would come hurrying to the door to greet you. She’d always have on her aqua colored turquoise pants, a bright striped polyester shirt and some brown SAS orthopedic shoes. She would be wiping her hands on her pants because you can guarantee she was always in the middle of cooking something for lunch or dinner. She made the best spaghetti in the whole world and if I had one more day with her, I’d make her write down the recipe instead of just letting her vaguely talk about what she put in her sauce. When you left her house, she would always stand in the driveway to blow you kisses and to give you hand signals like a flight crew to help you navigate as you backed into the street. Nevermind that she never learned how to drive, she was an expert at directing traffic.

Mema grew up in a huge Italian family. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Sicily when they were young and finally settled in Beaumont,Texas. Mema spent all of her life living in a two block radius of her entire family. I vaguely remember her mother, a small, wrinkled old lady who I didn’t understand because everything she said was in Italian. Mema’s name was Lena but a few years before she died we found her birth certificate and it said “Carmela”. We asked about it and she said that was her real name, so we asked where Lena came from and she wasn’t sure but thought that maybe they had a horse named Lena growing up.

Mema married my grandfather against her parents wishes. She was a high school graduate and he was a 6th grade dropout. She was the daughter of Italian immigrants who had raised her to be a good Catholic girl and he was a bootlegger. Her younger sister, Josephina (Fina for short) was scared of Papa until the day he died. If he answered the phone, she would just hang up. I wish I knew more of the story. I wish I knew how she met Papa and fell in love with him. I wish I knew what gave her the courage to marry him even if her parents didn’t necessarily approve. Those are just a few things I’d ask if I had one more day.

Mema raised 3 sons. My dad was born in 1945. She had several miscarriages and then six years later had twin boys. I would love to know what it was like when she delivered those twins. In the days before sonograms and weekly visits to the doctor, what was that moment like when they said “Oh, there’s two of them?” Was she happy, was she scared, was she overwhelmed?

Her 3 boys all turned out well. They graduated from college, married and had families of their own. They were a close knit family and everyone came to her house for a huge spaghetti lunch every Sunday. I don’t know that there was ever a Sunday when someone wasn’t at her house eating spaghetti and meatballs. I’d love to know how she raised her boys. What were her prayers for them? What did she instill in them while they were growing up? How did she discipline them because honestly, some of the stories from their childhood would lead you to believe they could have ended up serving time instead of becoming productive members of society.

Mema’s best friend was her sister Mamie. Aunt Mamie drove the half mile over to Mema’s house every morning so they could have their coffee together. I remember when I was little, Mema had a little coffee cup for me so that I could join them. Mema never learned how to drive so Aunt Mamie chauffered her everywhere. They were always heading off to “Beall Brothers”, or “the Market Basket” to see what was on sale. I’d love to know what they talked about. What were their thoughts on their family? Were they happily married? Did they even think about those things?

She had a formal living room that was separated from the rest of the house by a wooden pocket door. She never used that room unless she was hosting a wedding or baby shower. I can count on one hand the number of times people actually sat in there, but as a child I loved going in there and looking at all of her pretty china figurines and playing with a little table that opened up to reveal a copper interior. She also kept a secret stash of premium snack items in the china cabinet and she would pull you aside like a Keebler drug dealer and say, “psst…come see what Mema has in here for you” as she pulled out the Nutter Butters or Little Debbie snack cakes.

Family was everything to Mema. She was surrounded by the people she loved and who loved her the most. She knew what was truly important and her home reflected that. It was very rare that there weren’t at least 20 people in her house at any given time. She was always there to laugh at a good joke or old story, to cook a great meal or to read a story to a grandbaby. I can still hear her reading me The Little Match Girl over and over again to help me fall asleep. She was a night owl and a scaredy cat like me, so she always understood how hard it was for me to go to bed.

Mema slipped away from us unexpectedly. The summer before I got married she apparently had a stroke that just changed something in her. She was okay physically, but something changed inside that never really came back. I guess that’s one of the reasons that I wish for one more day with her because everything changed so suddenly. She lived four years longer and would have good days and bad, but was never quite the same.

Now that I’m married and have a daughter of my own there are so many things I wish I could ask her about her life. When you’re younger you just don’t realize the richness of a life well lived and don’t question how it all happened. I would love to have one more day to ask her about her hopes, her dreams, her heartbreaks and disappointments and just to make her happy I’d let her make me some of that world famous spaghetti.