Fold Your Arms and Smile!: My Mosaic of Love, Loss, and Survival

Randi Becker Walls was in her early thirties. It was the 1980s. It was a special occasion and she was attending an intimate family gathering at a relative's apartment. She hadn't seen her Aunt Lil and Uncle Hy for several years. They exchanged hugs and kisses. Preempting the start of any normal conversation, her Uncle Hy made this pronouncement:

"You had the worst, most terrible childhood that anyone could ever have had"... thanks Uncle Hy, she thought, for reminding me. Somehow, she made it through that "family" gathering that day. She was used to it. That is how it usually went. Always someone, somewhere, would bring up her less-than-wonderful childhood. The Ritual of Randi had to be performed before they could be engaged in any other meaningful type of conversation with her. But why? After all, she was the one who lived through those years! And while she was living through them she didn't always know that it was so bad. Hello??? How about seeing her some other way, for once, like the fact that she was now a grown woman with a wonderful career and a mountain of accomplishments under her belt. Fold Your Arms and Smile! is her story, the story of not only who she was, but of who she's become, and includes all the beautiful parts of her life, as well.