PARTY GIRL

Day 21 of 25 DAYS OF HUGGING:

Something imbedded in the DNA of every Italian is a party. When I asked Christina’s dad if I could marry his daughter, he never actually said yes, but instead asked, “When should we have a little engagement party?”  I took that as his approval.

Christina loved a party; she loved hosting them and she loved being at them.  It was her chance to see people, to hug people, to laugh and to smile.  It could be as simple as Sunday Pasta Diner (that’s good for a dozen people minimum in our family) or a 500-person wedding; it didn’t matter.  If one of us was not up for being at a party, that would not cut it with Christina.  “We have people to see, you get that scowl off your face right now.”  

It wasn’t about networking or face time or any of those catch phrases we like to use in life, it was about time with others, taking their warmth and love while spreading hers and squeezing the daylights out of you. 

It was simple and honest, and worth immeasurable value.  

That smile that lit up a room was the best decoration any party ever had.  It’s up to us to remember that and keep it going.  2020 has been a year where we have all realized how much we miss social interaction; here’s hoping that when we get it back soon, we will be more like Christina and bring the gift of warmth, AND HUGS, and smiles to such special events!

In the meantime please consider a donation to CCCF: www.celebratingchristina.org/donate

One day, one goal, one hug.

GARFIELD RIDGE

Day 22 of 25 DAYS OF HUGGING:

Christina grew up in Garfield Ridge; for those of you not familiar, Garfield Ridge is a vibrant neighborhood in the southwest corner of Chicago.  It’s one of those old-fashioned neighborhoods where people go for walks and stop to talk to friends on the porch.  Except in Christina’s world, she was related to half of them. 

So you would see this Aunt or that Uncle and next thing you know you were having another bowl of pasta, and Christina was holding court and passing out hugs.  

Everyone loved to see Christina, and she loved being with people she was comfortable around.  She was a regular at St. Daniel the Prophet, where we were married and both of our children were baptized.  We owned our first house on 55th Street in the neighborhood and our second just two blocks from Weber’s Bakery (conveniently!). It was hard for Christina to leave the neighborhood she had lived in for the first 40 years of her life, but she never really left.  She just expanded the circle of hugging.  Stop by Weber’s Bakery on Archer or any of the little restaurants that dot Archer and Harlem Avenues and you’ll still be able to feel what made Garfield Ridge and St. Daniel the Prophet such an integral part of Christina’s makeup.

Please consider a donation to CCCF: www.celebratingchristina.org/donate

One day, one goal, one hug.

SISTERS

DAY 23 OF 25 DAYS OF HUGGING:

Christina was the middle of three Pierorazio daughters born to Benny and Maria Pierorazio, with Linda the oldest and Gina the youngest. Ask any of their relatives and you will learn that if you found one of them somewhere, the other two weren’t far away.  I took a phone call one night from my boss, who quickly apologized for interrupting the party at my house; I told him that was my wife and her two sisters, in another room no less, with the door closed!  He said it sounded like 20 people were there.  And they certainly were their own party! 

Everywhere they went, laughing and smiling and hugging, and sometimes other people got to join in.

That bond with her sisters inspired and nurtured Christina, and gave her energy in the tough times.  She always said nothing was more important than family, and her time with her sisters in those final days at Northwestern Memorial before she came home bore that out.  Her relationship with her sisters was an early pillar and eventually a cornerstone in Christina’s life.  Christina taught her children to be close and be each other’s biggest supporter.  As a family, we have needed that closeness many times over the last four years. 

And we never forget those hugs….

please consider a donation to CCCF: www.celebratingchristina.org/donate

One day, one goal, one hug.

MARIA PIERORAZIO

Day 24 of 25 DAYS OF HUGGING:

Christina was the second of three daughters born to Benny & Maria Pierorazio. Maria was a doting mother and a role model in every sense to her daughter Christina.  Maria taught her daughter compassion and empathy, along with how to be a mother and how to run a family.  Any time Christina was faced with a problem, inevitably she would say:

“my mother would do this…”

Maria and Benny Pierorazio on their wedding day

Maria was THE driving force in Christina’s life.

While there were many lessons Christina learned from her mother, Maria’s final lesson for her daughter was to teach her how to handle illness and death with all the grace only a true angel could impart. 

For when Christina’s suffering became unbearable and when the doctors put her on hospice, Christina kept the picture of her mother on a table or the nightstand right in front of her where she could see her mother and feel her counsel.

Christina was driven to help rid this world of that awful breast cancer that took her mother some 28 years earlier.  She offered counsel and encouragement to others suffering from the disease and always advocated for screening.  She was a huge supporter of the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Center at Northwestern Memorial, and received all her screenings there after a false scare years ago.  She took great pride in strides we were making against that awful killer, and quietly relished the number of other young women who would now have joy of their mothers with them because we are making such progress against this form of cancer.  

This sense of purpose against cancer is what motivates all of us involved with CCCF.

For more information on Lynn Sage and all the great work they do, please visit: https://lynnsagefoundation.org.

And of course, please consider a donation to CCCF: www.celebratingchristina.org/donate

One day, one goal, one hug.

THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY

DAY 25 OF 25 Days of HUGging:

We have all been touched by Christina in some way, and still feel her presence in our lives today. But there would be no story without September 30th, 1995, and our wedding on that day 25 years ago today, a day God certainly preordained so long ago. This day summed up the beauty and brilliance of Christina, just one more sign of how lucky we have been to have her, to know her, and to share her.

September 30th, 1995 was a beautiful fall day, with just a wisp of an early morning shower, which I was quickly told is good luck, followed by sun and comfortable temperatures.  On our 5th anniversary, a friend gifted us this bottle of Dom Perignon, which we couldn’t drink because Christina was on antibiotics. But Christina as always had a plan:

“Let’s wait until our 25th anniversary to open this!!! ”

That was it! We decided that it would be saved for our 25th anniversary, her way of taking a negative, not being able to celebrate with a glass of champagne, and turning it into a positive, looking forward to many more years of marriage together, and just one of the millions of ways her thoughtfulness knew no limits. Since Christina isn’t here to physically open this bottle with me, I am sharing this moment with all of you. She would want that. So tonight, using the champagne flutes from our wedding reception, exactly as she planned and told me many times, I will open this bottle and toast the greatest and luckiest thing that ever befell me, and celebrate a great wife, dedicated partner, and best friend forever. Cheers to Christina, cheers to all of you, and cheers to finding a cure for cancer.

Here is the plan. Just like Christina’s decision on our 5th anniversary, we will not let this pandemic alter our plans to celebrate her and raise awareness and funding for women’s reproductive cancers. Over the next 25 days, today being the first day in our countdown, we will spotlight people, events, and organizations that were important to Christina and how they touch our lives every day.  There will be blogs, pictures, stories, videos, laughs, and an occasional emotional tug.

In the spirit of our Christina we will not let a pandemic stop us from our Fourth Annual Celebrating Christina Event (sorry, can’t be a Gala this year) in 2020.

How perfect to celebrate Christina and also start our Virtual Event raising awareness and funds for The Christina Carinato Charitable Foundation and the causes that were so important to her.

In the meantime, at any time in the next 25 days as you may be so moved, please consider a donation to the charity at www.celebratingchristina.org/donate.

Enjoy our celebration. Happy 25th Wedding Anniversary Christina!

One day, one goal, one big hug at a time.

It’s the little things.....

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Valentine’s Day comes right behind Christmas and Birthdays as one of the favorite days of the year in the Carinato house.  I believe the reason is because Valentine’s Day celebrates love, and being how Christina is, was, and always will be, the embodiment of love, this holiday is hers.  On our first Valentine’s Day 26 years ago today, part of my gift to Christina was this Elvis Doll (she would have dumped me for Elvis in a second!) which is still in her “chest o’ things” tucked away neatly in the corner of our guest room closet; I am not kidding, she has one of those big old massive trunks that she stores not just keepsakes (and EVERY gift I ever gave her) but also memories.  Mind you, when I moved into our first house I had a 2x2 container of “stuff” that she has publicly made fun ever since!  

““I brought all these precious items into our marriage
and he brought a Tupperware bin of junk.” 
-Christina”

Each item in that chest represents something important in her life, a memory, a special moment in her life. I was lucky enough for her to share the stories of each item with me shortly before our first child John was born. I didn’t tell her this until she was sick, but this is the story behind this Elvis doll. On that special Valentine’s Day, I first imagined that I might just be able to connive and fool her into marrying me one day. In hindsight, that Valentine’s Day has shaped the rest of my life, as Christina and I have shared a very special marriage filled with love. And that trunk?? At the moment it remains untouched and in the same corner spot of the guest room closet still.  One day I will need some extra strength, some inspiration from her, and I will open it, but not just yet...

How about you?  On this Valentine’s Day, will you do Christina and me the honor and remember some of the things in your trunk, all the great people and memories that keep us going????  And will you please do Christina and me one small grace: hug someone, and then hug someone else, and just don’t let it stop this Valentine’s Day!  That’s why she loved this day.

And speaking of memories, I promised that as soon as the Board approved it, we would be announcing the date of this year’s Gala, to make a few more memories for my—and hopefully your—emotional chest o’ things:  Saturday, October 24 again at picturesque Edgewood Valley Country Club.  Keep an eye on the website as tickets will be on sale beginning in June!  Enough blogging for February….

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!  Big big hugs from Christina and me….  Until we are together again.

"Matt, how did we get in this place?"

What a day today is, the third anniversary of the day Christina transitioned from this life to eternal life. I can tell you that there is not a single day that goes by that I don’t miss hugging my “Goose”, or more importantly getting the breath squeezed out of me by her! I miss those hugs so much more than words can express. There are so many mornings when I wonder what today will bring and how we got in this place to begin with, something Christina asked often in those final weeks. Just like then, I still don’t have an answer, except to say that my love for her, more importantly her love for me, and my belief that she is in a better place and not suffering, are what keeps me going. I am still the luckiest person I know, always have been and safe to assume I always will be. How could I not be? To have had Christina beside me for 25 years is more wealth than the richest man in world will ever know. And I see her, continue to feel her, with me in everything I see and touch in the 1092 days since I last held her. Because of her and her suffering, I have truly become a better person, although some might offer there wasn’t much room left for me to go the other way. But still…. The people that serve on the CCCF board, the volunteers for the annual Gala, all of you who support the Foundation, and then the people that have come into our lives, I know it is all part of her plan to add purpose to my life. She taught me so much in 25 years and she has taught me so much more in these last 36 months. And I have a lot more to learn and do!!!!

Christina raised and continues to raise two wonderful children, and I know she watches over them, interwoven in their lives every day as well. She instilled them with purpose along with courage, and it is amazing to see John dive into research and giving back, and to watch Donna offer her time and considerable talents to help others, while killing it already as an incredible contributor to society. I tell John and Donna that “Mom is always with us” and that is true.



So what have Christina and I been up to? What has Christina’s suffering brought the two of us? There will be more on each of these questions and so many others of the other highlights in our lives to come, but here’s a sampling:
*For openers, Christina and I have celebrated three more of her birthdays at the annual Gala; after all, she loved birthday parties, and so many of you are all kind enough to give her presents for research and cures for cancer that have exceeded $150,000 in those three years, with much more yet to come. She is her usual grateful self.

*Christina and I have been introduced to a wonderful group of people, dragged into the Sanderson clan if you will, a great blessing in our lives even as we are there to support those wonderful people in their own struggle. They could never know or understand how much they have helped us and will, God willing, continue to be part of our lives. May we bless all those folks as much as they have blessed us.

*Christina has steered us to wonderful people at Northwestern and one researcher in particular who has a deep passion and unfortunately has endured the same pain we have of losing a loved one to this dreaded uterine leiomyosarcoma. Just ask John… He and I know “Mom” engineered this whole thing and has been there with us as we partner with our new friends, friends we made because of her, friends like you who make a difference. Check out the video on our website of Vadim speaking at last year’s event and you will know exactly what John and I mean.

*Christina and I still support the John McNicholas Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, a passion in our lives for the last decade as anyone who know Christina knows how much she loves children, with Christina keeping us every bit involved and supportive as we were when she wrote that first check through tears in memory of John almost ten years ago. Even better, she engineered Donna interviewing for and being invited to join their Service and Leadership Institute, to be blessed the more by being with these wonderful people! I smile every time Donna does something with the Board because I know Christina is smiling with me after she engineered the whole thing!

*Christina and I had a great time at the Lyons Township “Pink Out” Basketball games in January. Oh my God, all those little girls Christina loved so much and doted over, the same little girls who hugged her like crazy at the McClure game after her cancer had come back and gave us such support and comfort…. oh my God, they have all grown up. What a night!!! Christina wasn’t just proud of her girls because they were raising money for her charity, she was proud of the amazing young women they had become. So am I! I don’t know that I have ever felt Christina with me as much as I did that rainy January Friday.

Those are just a small sample of our highlights from the last three years. There have been so very many, many more: graduations, weddings, births, and yes transitions from this life to eternal life. I will be back soon with a date for this year’s gala, some incredible work the Charity (and you!!!) are funding, the graduations from college of two of Christina’s five nieces. She will be there to celebrate with you Jenny and Maria, she will. We have much to do!!! And we have much to celebrate, and every time we do just know the party girl will be with us because she NEVER misses a good party. How about you? What do you have to do? Hug somebody? Hug somebody tight? As her pal Danny said three and a half years, no one ever hugged him that tight. Let’s give Christina a run for her money, starting today, the anniversary of when God brought her hugs back home for all eternity.

Writing a blog is something I struggled with but relented, starting with this bittersweet day. With some nudging from the wonderful folks who serve on the Board of the Christina Carinato Charitable Foundation, we hope this blog can serve as another way to connect with all of our friends. And maybe give us pause. And I am sure Christina will engineer it all….

God Bless all of us, God Bless Christina, and big big hugs to all, until we are together again!