Mom has been gone nine years today. Almost a decade. Nine rich years — not always easy ones, but no harder than hers. Years she missed, though she is always in my heart.

What I would give for one more heart-to-heart with Mom, sitting at the kitchen table when everyone else was asleep. What would I tell her? I would fill her in on the new additions to the family, the grandchildren and sons-in-law. I would tell her about my work and my travels. She would marvel at it all, I’m sure. We would, once again, try to solve all the world’s problems, finding it more difficult than we used to because the world’s problems have grown considerably thornier since she’s been gone.

Enough of that, though, we’d say. Let’s end on a high note. And that would be this: I’d be sure she understood that the four children she left behind are always there for each other. We live our own lives and respect each other’s choices. But we are, and always will be, a family.

Mom, center, in black shirt, with her sister, brother, sister-in-law, children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews (1997).