A snippet from the next book I am writing… 

Inheritance: The Legacy We Receive and the Legacy We Leave

Many of my earliest memories were of car rides – riding in the passenger seat of a vehicle with my father.

He took me everywhere. Constantly.

We went to Ross Paper in Farmingdale, Long Island to get printer paper and cartridges for the pharmacy printers. This was clearly way before Amazon.

Traveled to Home Depot to lug 2 by 4’s for his latest outdoor project.

Rode to the Baylawn property overlooking the Great South Bay to cut the grass, check the eel trap, and get bit by mosquitos.

Drove thirty minutes to his pharmacy in Kings Park where I swept floors, helped customers, and saw firsthand what being an entrepreneur was.

As a child, I complained and had no choice but to hop in the car for these adventures. I was a child and had to obey. 

Looking back, I realize those rides were about more than errands.

My father was a workaholic. He was always building something, fixing something, creating something. He couldn’t sit still.

But for those minutes in that Nissan Maxima, he was there. Physically present long enough for us to connect while listening to Phil Collins songs and talking about life. I was always inquisitive and would ask him questions and intently listen to the answers.

At the time, I didn’t realize that I was receiving an inheritance that extended from generations prior.

Not necessarily monetary inheritance.

Embedded in those conversations, transmitted in those trips was where I absorbed how my father moved, spoke, gestured, negotiated, and stood.

I was inheriting vision, resourcefulness, work ethic, determination, endurance, resilience that would leave a life-long impact on me.

I come from a long line of entrepreneurs.

My great grandfather, Giuseppe Tarantola, came over from Sicily, Italy when he was 16 and settled in Brooklyn, New York. He was a cobbler and played a clarinet in a band called Quattro Siciliana. Historical records show that his music shaped the future of Italian-American ballads.

My grandfather, Rosario (Roy) Tarantola was a policeman and operated a food truck. Early in the morning, my grandmother Josephine would make the food, the kids would pack the food – lasagna, meatballs and spaghetti, Italian subs or ‘heros’. Grandpa would travel all around feeding construction workers, tradespeople, and local business employees.

My father, Joseph Tarantola, was a serial entrepreneur and through his career owned real estate, several pharmacies, a sneaker store, and a bar. The sneaker store and the bar didn’t pan out – but Winn Drugs was the pharmacy that stood the test of time. He had that pharmacy for 32 years and employed hundreds of people through that time – high school and college students who got their first job there. Women who worked there for decades.

And then there was me – the first female in this entrepreneurial line of determined men.

The cycle breaker.

The black sheep that wanted to break out of the family pharmacy business and create something meaningful that would make a big impact on the world. It existed beyond those pharmacy walls, beyond the counter, beyond the perfectly pressed white coat I had chosen to wear when I dedicated my life to pharmacy at 18.

After making the bold decision that changed everything at 24 – to leave the family pharmacy and forge my own path – I was kicked out of my house, fired from Winn Drugs, and left to live in my car.

I thought I was leaving the family business – but now I see that I was evolving the family legacy line. 

The fact is, there was a lot I inherited from the Tarantola line, both positive and negative. Patterns of survival, of working to prove worthiness, emotional suppression, and conditional love.

There were behaviors, beliefs, and unspoken ‘rules’ that I absorbed like a sponge from a very young age.

Rest was equivalent to being lazy. Work hard at all costs.

We don’t feel or express our feelings. We push them down. Work through them. Ignore them. It’s weak to show emotion. To be vulnerable. To cry in public was the worst thing imaginable. 

Perfection is how we stay in control. Anything less than that is unacceptable.

As these inherited beliefs slowly seeped into my young brain, I was set onto a path where security and safety were certain.

After years of emotional suppression, I chose pharmacy as my predictable, safe path.

I developed an eating disorder where I became obsessed with perfection and control to stay safe. It minimized risk – risk of being judged, criticized, or even abused.

When I made that bold decision at age 24, I had no idea I was unconsciously breaking generational patterns that would change the trajectory of my life and all future generations.

What I didn’t realize was that I was stepping into the role and purpose I had been preparing for my entire life.

I had inherited these things, but I was stepping into becoming a cycle breaker.