Remembering Mathilda

If you're lucky, you have at least one person in your life who inspires you, who you look up to, and who, even when they're enterré, you think of everyday as if they were still sitting right next to you over a cup of coffee, chatting about the day.  For me, that person was Grandma Tillie, and today was the one year anniversary of her death, which was spent as a happy remembrance of all the wonderful ways she inspired everyone who knew her.

Some memories of Tillie are impossible to recreate: the fresh, flowery smell of her skin thanks to her religious use of face creams and lotions (she had flawless skin to the day she died); Christmases in her kitchen and the way those chocolate chip oatmeal cookies melted in my mouth just-so; her uncanny ability to break out into song on any occasion... Fortunately, Tillie also left behind a long list of other, more easily imitated memories and habits that I spent the day trying to celebrate.

First off, I visited Tillie's grave and added to her beautiful setting a lemon cyprus and orchid that I'm sure, much to Tillie's delight, made all the neighboring graves slightly envioux.  Later, I ate dejeuner with a tall, dark, and handsome gentlemen (what can I say, she preferred men) at her Saratoga restaurant, La Trattoria, where I made sure to have a glass of white wine with ice on the side scooped carefully into the glass with a fork and fingers.  I then spent the rest of the day with said tall, dark, handsome man basking in the sun at the beach without a care in the world.   I'd like to think I made Tillie proud, though I know what would really make her proud is that my family still talks about her--and misses her--every single day.


For those of you who weren't lucky enough to know her, Mathilda "Tillie" Coughlan Mahoney was a much loved mother, grandmother, dancer, jokster, and beauty extraordinaire, not to mention my family's source of tradition and proud Irish roots.  She meant so much to so many and is thought of avec amour everyday.