It has been six months since my Mom passed away, it seems so long ago and yet like yesterday at times. The early grief has with the passing days given away to sometimes still forgetting and reaching to call her with good news or to talk, to just be a daughter wanting to talk to her Mom. This past week my brother and I took Mom's two best friends, ages 82 and 84 out for lunch. We have known them all of our lives. My Godmother, she and Mom had been friends since school. They are so sweet, when I was getting in the car, one remarked I was getting taller, could have been the 3" heels but more so both of them are shrinking as happens with age. They are older, tinier and with some health issues but they still are just the same as I always remember, happy and engaged in life. Both miss my Mom very much and we shared many stories and good memories. It was a lovely lunch and we toasted my Mom.

When someone leaves it is sad but so much of them remains in our hearts. We carry those memories with us, a part of them. In the passing and in the reflection their value, their footprint left on this life keeps unfolding. In the past six months the letters, the cards some even from people Mom taught in kindergarten forty years ago still arrive in the mail. What I knew of my Mom in her last few years was only a small part of who she was. Through reading her old journals, seeing pictures and hearing stories I see the vibrant remarkable woman she was. A school friend called and spoke of my Mom at eighteen like it was yesterday, how fun loving and amazing she was. Sometimes I wonder do our children ever see us as the extraordinary people we are? I do not know for sure but what I do know is in the last six months I have had the wonderful gift of learning who my Mother really was , to the wonderful, amazing woman I was so blessed to have as my Mom!

Follow the JOY! Debra, CEO!