Iterations

Tomorrow would have been my mom’s 74th birthday and while not a day goes by that I don’t miss her, I am grateful for the life I was allowed to share with her. She was generous, compassionate, and the most unconditionally loving person I have ever met. She always encouraged me to embrace the quirky, creative side of myself and insisted that following my passion meant not holding back and always giving 100%. As a child, my mom was a dancer—she and her brother Jerry even appeared on The Jack Parr Show together. A few years later, Jerry decided that “dancing was for sissies,” then life ultimately got in the way and my mom eventually gave it up too. While a life as a professional dancer was not to be, music was still an important part of her life. Even after I came along, our house was always filled with music—mostly Motown. I grew up on a steady musical diet of artists like Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Marvin Gaye, and the Jackson 5. But when she wasn’t grooving to the sounds coming out of Hitsville