My mother was hard. My mother was tough. She went to college with Ethel Rosenberg. Imagine that! She read the Daily Worker and was a card-carrying Communist. She was born of immigrant parents and had a disease called Raynaud’s; the pernicious kind, the kind that comes with scleroderma (a hardening of the skin and viscera). She lost an arm, below the elbow; her right leg, above the knee; and two fingers above the knuckles on her right writing hand. She died at the age of 59. Raynaud’s is a circulatory disease, a kind of leprosy with which your extremities lose circulation, atrophy and die. She always had varying degrees of gangrene before amputation. The last five years, I pushed her wheelchair. We lived through 30 surgeries. Mt. Sinai Hospital was my after-school program.

Sorry for all of this detail, but it made her who she was and shaped, for better or worse, me. Once, when I was in college, we were in Chock Full o’Nuts on 116th and Broadway. Outside, it was over one hundred degrees. Mom untied the knot on her blouse of the amputated right arm — it was so hot she pulled the sleeve up and rested her healed stump on the counter. We ate raisin cream cheese sandwiches and heavenly coffee. The woman next to us asked my mom to put her arm (stump) under the counter ledge; she said it was disgusting to see while eating. My mother said, "This is my arm." So, the woman changed her seat and Mom’s arm/stump rested openly. I thought I’d die.

My mother didn’t like to be touched or kissed. She was the only one of four children (she had three brothers) that went to college. She majored in physics and chemistry at Hunter and wanted to be a doctor, but she didn’t have the money.

She was never particularly warm to me; although, I could make her laugh. I can’t remember ever being kissed or hugged. My sister says she didn’t do that.

I learned to drive a car with special brakes for the handicapped. I learned to do homework in the car waiting for a free parking space. I learned to be outspoken — even talk back, and I learned life was tough and cold.

I was left-handed and my mother lectured my first grade teacher on letting it be. Miss Donahue wanted me to be right-handed and tied my left arm behind my back. My mother won the battle, but it took several months of humiliation with a scarf tying my left hand. Public School 15 was the torture chamber of the Lower East Side.

I’m sorry for my mother’s painful life, blue lips and blue fingers. I thank her for making me forthright and never ashamed. Little disgusts me; I’ve seen a lot. I do not have her disease; it is not inherited. I am thankful always for my manicures and pedicures. I never take ten fingers and ten toes for granted, nor life, for that matter — especially on Mother’s Day.

And, by the way, an "A" was never enough. If I got an "A," my mother wanted to know if anyone got an "A+." And if I got a "B," I was to ask the teacher why. I still do that. I still want good grades.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom; I miss you.

Thanks for the bumpy ride.