Across the room, over the door to the dining room, hung my mother’s favorite sign. Painted on thin metal whitewashed to look vintage, it read: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. A saying so common it bordered on trite, but one my mother had firmly embraced nonetheless. She was a lemonade sort of woman, approaching every hurdle with a brisk, efficient optimism. If she were here now, I knew what she’d say. “Stop crying over your lemon of a life, Lolly, and start figuring out how to make lemonade.”
