Last Words

This week has certainly been an emotional one. In amongst all the joyful, loving feelings surrounding Evan's wedding, there have been some wistful, poignant ones as well.

My mother died when I was still very young. She had breast cancer, and by the time she realized something was wrong, it had spread too far. In those days, one didn't discuss the "C-word", and she didn't want my sister and I to know how ill she was.

Consequently, it came as a considerable shock to us when she died. Shortly before her death, she wrote a letter to her two girls, and asked that we be given it "at the proper time." To this day, more than forty years later, I still cannot read it without weeping.

Oh, how I wish she could have known my three boys -- her grandsons. How happy she would be to see them married and grown into fine young men! I thought about her on Evan's wedding day.

Here is the letter, along with a portrait of my mother as I remember her. Also, a small porcelain box which used to sit on her dressing table, and which contained her face powder. When I lift the lid, I can still catch a faint whiff of it.