Yesterday

Yesterday memory came alive. Not just for my mother, but for my sister and for me. It came alive in the form of a friend. More than a friend. A friend who feels like family. A friend who is family. Family whose voice evokes childhood games, bicycle rides, seashore adventures and days and evenings filled with shared joy and laughter, the joy and laughter of our families, blended together in our home in Portland, their home in Barrington, Rhode Island and every summer a cottage in Maine with the endearing name of 3A.

Our memories came alive together through the pictures she brought and the stories we shared. Right down to the potato chips we bought for lunch (a treat our mothers bought only when our families visited...we conceded to our modern consciences and bought the baked chips!) we paid tribute to the gift our families were to each other. The joke for both families is that we have known each other since before we were born. When that is your history, your heritage all else falls away. All else fell away yesterday. The loss of my father, my friend's father and mother and even the loss of my mother faded as we sat around her bed and listened to her tell the stories again, the stories we know so well, the stories that we now tell as if we were there. We sat together in her hospital room and laughed, laughed out loud, full laughter that so often does not reside within the walls of the hospital, that laughter that does reside within our families. We laughed and knew that tears will come soon enough. Sadness will come soon enough for all of us. Grief is already here.

Yesterday memory came alive. Yesterday friendship brought us together and held us in its hand. Yesterday we were thankful once again to have had such strong examples, strong teachers of life, love, family and friendship. Yesterday I was reminded how big our life is and I am thankful.