In this picture of the two of us dated 1958, she is younger than my daughters are now and I am the same age as Jackson and Griffin ...
I still have some of her clothes, mostly skirts that I wear less and less these days, and her jacket that I wear whenever the temperature drops below fifty ...
her quilt, first written about here ...
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and the sampler I made for my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary that hung in their dining room on Shelter Island until my dad passed away in 2012 ...
I uncapped a bottle of moisturizer, given to me by my dad when I helped go through mom's things and was transported by the scent that was a part of her for as long as I can remember ...
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I also found my planner for 2008 --a year filled with sorrow and joy-- with lesson plans for school and wedding plans for our daughters interspersed with questions for doctors and lists of meals to cook and freeze at Shelter Island ... the last letter from my mom, when the neurological decline that had begun two years earlier was accelerating --stealing away her ability to speak and write and walk, but not her mind-- in which she wrote prophetically, "I'm not a very good patient and want to go out on my own" ... and the eulogy I delivered at her memorial service less than six months later ...
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Re-reading those words, I realized once again it was cooking for others that was the essence of my mom and continues to be the best part of me. A mantra to live by: Food is love.
