The anniversary slipped on by. Chatted some with my sister, led a Sunday School on Mental Health, cried a wee bit, ate ice cream, read to the kids. It is over. That whole darned year of "firsts without": first Valentine's, first Easter, first Birthday, first Mother's Day, first Christmas, first Birthday since 1942 that my Mom hasn't been on this earth.

I am trying to duck down to Ann Arbor to spend time with my Papa before the big blizzard hits. And sometime that week he will realize too that it has been a year. That will be a hard hour.

Grieving someone that hasn't been part of your day-to-day life (for some while) must have its own timing. I saw my Mom roughly every six weeks. This included the time we were in Durham (17 hour drive.) Yet, the day -to -day absence makes me feel that Mom is still there in that far corner of Michigan, in the corner of my mind, just beyond the blue hills and the Manistee river. Drinking a cup of coffee in our little blue house, talking to the cat, snapping her fingers to the Country station, walking with snowshoes across the field, Love makes places sacred, and death alone shows us the strength of loves tendril-ed ties.