I'd just sit with Dee Dee on the corner off of Queens Boulevard and drink and insult people and stuff. That's when I got kicked out of my house. My mother told me it was for my own good.
One of the greatest gifts my brother and I received from my mother was her love of literature and language. With their boundless energy, libraries open the door to these worlds and so many others. I urge young and old alike to embrace all that libraries have to offer.
My mother sees things but from the distance; she does not weigh them in regard to my position, and she judges me too harshly. But she is my mother, who loves me dearly; and when she speaks, I can only bow my head.
Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.
I've spent my whole career trying to stay out of any box that anyone could put me in. 'I'm going to do a play now.' 'Now I'll do a musical.' That was my instinct. So I don't feel boxed in. But 'African-American woman' is part of my identity. I don't want to relinquish that - especially as a mother, helping my daughter find her identity.
Dad had great people investing in his life at a young age. His mother, his stepfather, his Boy Scout leader, his football coach. That's where integrity is planted, like seeds that are harvested later.
My mother had taught me about the importance of finding a 'good provider,' so when my boyfriend proposed, I said 'yes' in a heartbeat. I was still just a kid, and I didn't know what was coming in life.
When I was born, my parents and my mother's parents planted a dogwood tree in the side yard of the large white house in which we lived throughout my boyhood. This tree I learned quite early, was exactly my age - was, in a sense, me.
That's the thing about Mother Nature, she really doesn't care what economic bracket you're in.
When I was a kid, my mother used to feed me mashed-potato sandwiches, brussel sprout sandwiches; my brain cells were starving from lack of food. I'll eat anything. I'll eat dirt.
My mother watched her loving husband look at her with blankness or contempt and sometimes hatred. And yet dementia is classed as a social condition, so that the state is not required to pay for long-term residential care. Calling it what it is - brain damage - is too expensive.
Brando's a family friend. His mother gave my father a shot to be in a play at the Omaha Community Playhouse. That was the first production he was in.
I was almost 8 when my mother bravely brought her children to this country so we could have a chance at a better life.
My mom always instilled in me that it was braver to ask for help when you need it. That has absolutely stuck with me over the years but became even more important in practice once I became a mother. It may sound trite, but the concept of 'it takes a village' really could not be more true.
Why is it braver to be a single mother versus being with a partner? Being in a couple and having a child could be more challenging because there might be conflict if the male partner cannot understand the extreme attachment a woman feels when she has a child.
My greatest inspiration is my mother, the bravest person I ever knew. She overcame incredible odds, worked while raising two kids, and made it all look incredibly simple. Even in her final days succumbing to cancer, she fought like a champion.
I like having a good time. It's probably my mother's Brazilian genes in me - party, party.
I've been touching instruments since the day I was born. My mother is Brazilian, and she listens to Brazilian music. My father was a musician, and I've seen pictures of him when he was in a band playing guitar and piano. He loved country music, Frank Sinatra, and stuff like that.
My - both my sisters died with pancreatic cancer. My brother died with pancreatic cancer. My daddy died of pancreatic cancer. My mother died with breast cancer.
I feel that between my experience and my mother's, breast cancer is a little bit like someone who lives next door. I know what that person looks like and what their daily habits are.
