Don't Forget Tomato Paste

The sound of Wanda pounding chicken cutlets in her kitchen sent a Morse code alert to the neighborhood that a delicious meal was up ahead. When the hammering stopped, my sisters and I stood tableside helping her bathe each cutlet in an egg wash. From there we would coat them in a mixture of breadcrumbs and cheese.

The smell of the hot oil frying each cutlet into a crispy masterpiece made our bellies rumble. Wearing an outfit and hairstyle from the latest fashion, perfectly applied makeup and gold hoop earrings, Wanda would turn the cutlets and say, "I make mine paper thin so they fry fast. You have to watch them every second so they won't burn. It is a lot of extra work to get them this thin, but it is worth it." She would stop to puff her cigarette in between sentences.

After a brief rest on top of paper towels, the mouthwatering cutlets were sprinkled with salt and piled high on top of plates. I remember eye balling the mountains of culinary perfection awaiting the moment when mum would allow us to sample the labor of her love. In our home food and love went together like spaghetti and meatballs. Everyone was welcome around Wanda's table.

My favorite meal was her beef braciole. I remember standing on a stool near the counter watching mum cut and pound the flank steak. After placing stuffing (usually a sautéed onion, cheese and breadcrumb mixture) in the middle of the steak, she would roll each section of the stuffed steak.

From there, she would wrap individual steak servings in white kitchen twine. My job was to place my finger on top of the steak as she tied strong knots. "The rope holds the steak together when we fry it in the pan. We don't want the stuffing to fall out before we put the meat in the sauce," she'd say as I carefully held my finger in place. "You're doing such a good job. You're going to be a great cook when you grow up."

Once all of the meat was seared, she would begin her sauce. Shortly after we heard the sizzle from the onions diving into the extra virgin olive oil, she'd say, "You have to wait for the onions to become see-through before you add your tomato paste. This is very important. You can't rush the sauce."

Once the sautéed onions became translucent, Wanda would add tomato paste. "Not everyone starts their sauce off with tomato paste. I use it because I like a thicker sauce." She would remove the pot from the stove and hold the handles so I could look inside to see the process.

"When I took the paste out of the can it was bright red. See how it is becoming darker now like almost a maroon color? This means the paste has had enough time in the oil with the onions. Now we are ready to add our other ingredients. If you want a delicious and thick sauce don't forget tomato paste."

As much as Wanda loved to cook, she loved to sing. She had a face and figure that was made for the stage and a voice that was made for the radio. The daughter of a Sicilian mother and Native American father, her striking beauty and natural talent landed her jobs as a singer in nightclubs.

Growing up, there was always music playing in our home. Some days she would belt out Cher in the kitchen. Other days she would sing Diana Ross solos into a hairbrush as she danced around with us in the parlor. In the dining room she would wail Tom Jones and Leslie Gore ballads as we set the table. We would sit audience in her bedroom as she rehearsed the Dorothy Moore version of "Misty Blue." I was never able to differentiate her voice from the album playing in the background.

Country music had yet to take the east coast by storm, but Wanda was known to sing Patsy Cline's "Crazy", Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" and Dolly Parton's "Jolene" every time they were featured on the variety TV shows she watched. Although she was a child of the Beatles, her adult solo repertoire consisted mostly of torch songs. She liked the cathartic power of songs about hardship or heartbreak.

Despite a rocky history of romance, Wanda never gave up on her fairytale. Her happily ever after was about motherhood not Prince Charming. The men in her life would come and go, but her children were hers forever. According to mum, the chance to love us and be loved by us was all she ever needed.

When my sisters gave birth to their children, Wanda experienced a different kind of love. Her grandchildren Paige, Tyler, Taylor and Trey were born between 1992 and 2004. Her enthusiasm for being a grandmother was endless. The kids were the first thing she thought of when she woke up in the morning and the last thing she thought of when she went to bed at night.

She was glad she had her children when she was young. As a young grandmother she had the energy to fully submerge herself in the daily routine of the grandkids. During this exciting time, she married a good man named Doug. They stayed together for the rest of her life.

In the mix of all of these new beginnings, a breast cancer diagnosis tried to slow Wanda down. With our loving family at her side, she fought and triumphed over the disease in 2009. Shortly after, she welcomed a puppy named Emma Mae to our family and continued soaking in the privilege of being a doggy-mom as well as grandmother. Five years after her first diagnosis, the breast cancer metastasized. This is when the love Wanda had spent her entire life fostering shone its purest beauty.

Wanda Stairs Howard August 26, 2013

Remember the memories that you've made in life, think of them often, that way you get to enjoy the experiences more than just once!

Be True to Yourself

Wanda was a trailblazer. During a time when society frowned on young girls having children out of wedlock, she had a baby. Later in life, she married a black man when bi-racial marriages in the United States were socially scandalous. As the mother of a mixed race child (my sister Tahlia) Wanda proudly faced discrimination and bigotry in the name of love and the right to love. She obtained her G.E.D. decades after she was supposed to have graduated from high school and went on to graduate from Paralegal School. She used her creativity to work at a high paying job in newspaper advertising.

In search of something more rewarding, she left this lucrative job and became a Certified Nursing Assistant. She shared her compassion and empathy as a hospice worker for patients with cancer and AIDS. This was during a time when the world was paralyzed with fear at the very mention of HIV.

Her fearless and compassionate spirit brought her to the bedside of the sick and dying. She incorporated her love of fashion and beauty with the way she cared for each person. Her work tool box included nail polish, curlers, combs, brushes, and scented hand cream. For hours she would sit with her beloved hospice friends, massaging their hands and feet, setting their hair, and painting their nails. She helped them preserve grace, beauty, and dignity in their deaths.

During our childhood mum was the neighborhood barber, hair stylist, and beautician. Without any formal training she would help those who couldn't afford a cut, color, or style in a salon. She loved visiting the wholesale beauty shops and stocking up on supplies to help beautify her friends. I loved watching her make people look and feel pretty in our home. Her giving heart instilled confidence in everyone.

While people were complaining about the homeless population in Boston, Wanda was giving money, food, and cigarettes to those wrapped in blankets on the side of the road. As a tireless advocate for the downtrodden, she loved her time as a volunteer for Catholic Charities. No matter what society deemed right or wrong, Wanda remained true to herself.

Wanda never forgot how difficult it was to raise three girls with very little financial and emotional support. There were many times when I watched mum take the final twenty dollars out of her pocketbook and hand it to someone who needed formula and diapers for their baby. With very little money in her checking account, she would go without for the rest of the week until her next check was cashed. If she realized someone had fallen on hard times, she would leave a shopping bag filled with food or gently used clothing at their door.

Even when she had breast cancer, Wanda insisted on taking care of the people around her. She supplied everyone in her chemo center (nurses and patients) with gifts and food at each chemo session. Some days she would pass out religious medals or rosary beads. Other days she would share magazines or homemade sesame cookies or strawberry shortcake.

Wanda's love of food was not minimized during chemo. To the contrary, the steroids in her chemo drip sent her appetite into overdrive. We planned daily adventures around food. Champagne with strawberries, blueberries with lemon curd, oranges with cream, and mocha with raspberries were a few of the reasons why we piled into my Jeep one afternoon.

One hundred and thirty-five feet above the ocean, we crossed the Cape Cod Canal in search of the latest trendy, foodie craze - gourmet cupcakes. With mum by my side and my friend Mo seated behind her, we were on a cupcake mission. We welcomed any excuse to break away from the ordinary. Lumpectomies, double mastectomies, chemo, radiation, reconstruction, and breast cancer had become our ordinary. Mum and Mo had breast cancer surgery one business day apart during the late spring of 2009.

Wanda spent that summer indulging in overpriced pastries and planning adventures. The anticipation of each new outing served as a buffer to the chemo center and exam rooms. She buried her mind in research. Dog-earing the pages of the lists of Boston Magazine Zagat-rated restaurants and five-star hotels became our sport. Hotels with luxurious spas that were way out of our price range were earmarked first.

Oprah visited the Cape that summer to attend the funeral of Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The local papers quoted her praising a local spot in Centerville for having the best homemade pies. The day the story broke we gassed up the Jeep and headed back over the bridge - great pie has special powers. A part of me believes delicious pie can win a street fight with cancer.

Neither the cupcakes nor the pies were especially 'drop-your-fork' fabulous, but spontaneity made us feel in control of our happiness. The ability to remain impulsive during a time when most everything was scheduled and played out to somebody else's agenda was more delicious than any butter and sugar frosting.

This was mum's first time at the breast cancer and cupcakes rodeo. She only went to her primary care physician seeking help for her debilitating hot flashes. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was rumored to be the surefire cure. A five-year lapse in time between mammograms had crept up on mum. To be safe, her doctor ordered a mammogram before prescribing the HRT.

The images showed a large mass and a biopsy determined it was cancer. The surgeries, pathology reports, and lymph node involvement confirmed the advanced staging of her disease. To be precise, she had Stage 3, Estrogen-based breast cancer. Of the seventeen lymph nodes removed, eight of them were cancerous.

Wanda's surgery was in Boston, about 45 miles away from home. Traffic is a beast in our tiny Bay State, so we planned our hotel trips around follow-up visits with mum's rock star surgeon. The Best of the Best, this doctor's patients included a long list of high profile women including Elizabeth Edwards and Teresa Heinz-Kerry.

By the third week of August, Wanda was completely bald from chemo. She looked so stunning in her scarves and wigs that a staff member of the Park Plaza Hotel couldn't resist mum's wide-eyed request to tour the Presidential Suite during our stay there. With the pride of a true daughter of Massachusetts and her love of all things 'Camelot' Wanda glowed with pleasure as she told me "John F. Kennedy slept here."

The next day the media announced the death of Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy. Cancer has a way of leveling social status and is no respecter or wealth or position. During her fight with cancer, mum often referred to "Ted's cancer" as if they had sat side by side sharing crackers in the same chemo center. The camaraderie between cancer patients is both beautiful and heartbreaking.

Mum and I went to the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in a section of Boston named Mission Hill. We lit candles and prayed for Ted the day before his funeral. President Barack Obama was scheduled to attend the service. News reporters lined the streets.

A reporter approached Wanda and asked if she wanted to share a few words about the passing of the Senator. Looking flawless in her perfectly applied makeup and scarf, mum offered raw words about life, love, and cancer.

When the camera stopped, she turned to me and said, "All of the money and power in the world can't save us once it is our time to go. This is why we have to plan adventures and make the most out of every single day. This is why we have to celebrate all of the moments in life and have to have fun. We never know when the end will come."

Wanda Stairs Howard February 13, 2013

I love asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up ... cause, you know ... I'm still looking for ideas.

Experience the Best of the Best

As a family we spent the next five years after her diagnosis making a strong effort to honor mum's request for more fun. We'd load up the grandchildren and visit the coast of New Hampshire and Cape Cod. Weekends involved sleepovers with the grandkids at mum's house in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. These getaways always involved some form of arts and crafts, cooking, reading, eating, yard work, walking the canal, shopping, or preparing projects for school. The weekends with the grandkids mirrored the weekends of my childhood. Wanda always sought fun.

We continued scouting the 'Best of Boston' section of local magazines. We prided ourselves in finding the best cheeseburger, the best soul food, the best cannoli, and the best breakfast. We saw the best of the best movies, a few of which we walked out of once we realized the critics weren't always right. Life really is too short for bad movies.

We walked through bookstores picking up two copies so that we could read them in parallel. Our family watched the same TV shows so we could stay up late gossiping about the players in each storyline. We poked through shops smelling soap and candles. We never missed a chance to attend birthday parties, holidays, and special occasions.

Life and work kept moving on and about a year into mum's recovery I expanded my performing arts school business by opening a small theatre. Our entire family came together and worked on the project. Mum left her creative mark on nearly every wall of the 11,000 square foot space. Several comedy headliners played at the theatre. Each season there was a terrific line up of great shows and talented artists. As a family, we spent a lot of time seeing shows, concerts, and plays together at the theatre.

The performing arts are part of our family DNA. While Wanda was singing at local night clubs around Boston, her brother was the lead singer in a band. Their grandmother from Sicily had a beautiful voice for opera. During the early 90's mum enjoyed working as a karaoke disc jockey on weekends. If you closed your eyes you would have thought Patsy Cline or Cher had stepped up to the mic; mum's voice was that good.

Singing brought mum a lot of joy and even may have extended her life. In the summer of 2013, my sisters took mum to a local Chinese restaurant known for their karaoke lounge. Having not sung in a while, mum was disappointed in her vocal quality. This was the first time I remember hearing her say she had a hard time catching her breath. She assumed the chest and neck radiation (following her chemo) must have altered her voice.

After the karaoke night we began noticing a change in her breathing. For a few weeks mum sounded like she had developed a summer cold. In addition to her breathing issues, she was often tired and needed to nap. She visited her doctor and asked for a chest X-ray. They listened to her lungs, which sounded clear so the request for the X-ray was ignored.

I drove her to a local pulmonary specialist to rule out chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or advanced emphysema. She was a lifelong smoker and was never in denial about the risks associated with smoking.

Without even sending for an X-ray, the specialist recommended immediate home oxygen for sleeping. He also ordered a test that involved her walking around a track while being hooked up to some type of device. This test was scheduled a month away. The patient advocate in me came out at the reception area once I heard that the reason why we had to wait a month for the test was that the specialist was going on vacation.