May Special Feature: Remembering Mom by Cheryl C. Malandrinos

Since May is the month we celebrate mom, I figured I would share a little memory of my own. Back before scrapbooking became such a huge business, my mother encouraged her children to start a scrapbook. She purchased one for each of her three daughters and typed a note to each girl, which she glued onto the inside of the front cover.

My note starts off stating that I was her favorite daughter--though somehow, I believe if I looked into my sisters' scrapbooks their notes would say the same. I guess that was Mom's way of trying to make us feel special.

Along with report cards and selected work from elementary school, are birthday cards, certificates of achievement, and other momentos of my childhood. Browsing through it always makes me think of my mother, who lost her battle to cancer at the age of 47, when I was a young teen.

I often wonder if my life would have been less tumultuous in my teens and early twenties if she had lived. I am happy now that many years after her death, I can pull out a green-covered scrapbook whose pages are yellowed with age, where some of the contents, now unglued, hide loosely between the large, stiff sheets, and feel that connection to my past that Mother must have known would be important when she encouraged her young daughters to share their memories within the pages of their scrapbooks.


Cheryl C. Malandrinos is a freelance writer, book reviewer, and blogger. She is also a virtual book tour coordinator for Pump Up Your Book Promotion. Cheryl's first Christian children's picture book is now under contract with Guardian Angel Publishing.