Frozen pizza

My mother loves to cook. Maybe it’s a cliché of an Italian-American home, where I grew up as the youngest of four children, but we were always surrounded by food. Sunday afternoon, post-church, was always the biggest feast of the week. My mother’s homemade pizza was always the show-stopper. In our family, among our extended family and in our neighborhood, it was a known commodity.

My parents are old; my father is 86, my mother is 82. Like many men and women in their 80s, their health is failing to varying degrees. But, they still have each other, and we would most definitely sign up for a lifespan that stretches into the 80s. A few weeks ago, we had a small gathering to celebrate their 59th wedding anniversary. A pretty good run, if you ask me. My mother often tells me, in person and over the phone, in her Italian accent: “Peter, you know. Your father and me, we getting old.” To which I always reply: “Ma. There’s no ‘getting’ anymore. You have arrived at your destination. You ARE old!” We get a laugh out of that. But it’s true. There is no denying it is true.

My mother has macular degeneration. She is losing her vision, a lot more rapidly than we would all like. Her kitchen is no longer as active as it once was. Perils lie at every corner. When you cannot see well, you cannot cook well. Combine this with the fact that she had a major fall a few years ago that has greatly limited her mobility, and the days of the vintage homemade pizza are numbered. Perhaps, sadly, they are over for good.

When I traveled down there to northern New Jersey last week for a quick visit and to help with transportation to doctor appointments, she announced that there was Ellio’s Pizza in the freezer, if I wanted it for lunch. She was apologetic. No homemade pizza. She urged me to have the Ellio’s. It was lunchtime. I had some Ellio’s Pizza. Did I like it, she wanted to know? Sure, Ma, it was great. Good, good, as long as you like it, as long as you are full, she said. Of course it’s not as good and not as satisfying as the homemade pizza; I wasn’t going to say that, and make her feel any worse. But for now, frozen pizza in their house is just as good, as long as they are around for a while longer to share it with us.