Wherever Mom moves to, photos of her four girls sit on the square, leather-topped coffee table in the livingroom.  The photos are of school days – Catholic uniforms hand-pressed by Mom, my wavy hair brushed and barrette-d by Mom.  Many times, as if in a trance, I trace the scrolled border of gold tooling on the leather of the table – my finger weaves in-and-out, in-and-out, along with my senses, as my young girl self watches from the picture frame.

In-and-out, in-and-out, as life flits by, I still reach for those days.  Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not-so-good, because sometimes my senses are a lousy blue.

Can I tell you that Mom and Uncle Pippi enter my thoughts every day?  As if in a trance, something happens and clicks me right back to them.  It might be that I see a wild rabbit dining on wild strawberries in my yard, it might be an American flag, of red-white-and-blue, on a front door, it might be a tomato plant in a garden, a drive along a beach, a Heineken beer, a clam shell, a beach towel, a book on dementia, a cotton puff of a cloud against a blue sky, the North Korean Chairman at the 38^th Parallel on t.v., or, dear, sweet, Jesus, God only knows what else.

Can I tell you that I wake in the early, early morning, turn on the t.v., and see our U.S. President shaking hands with the North Korean Chairman?  Can I tell you that Mom and Uncle Pippi are with me then?

Perhaps it is just a matter of missing them.

“Turn off the t.v. and go to bed, Jeanne,” Mom would say.

In-and-out, in-and-out, as life flits by, I reach for them.

“Some things in life are just lousy,” Mom would say.