I'm at the house, mom, using your lap top. I still see the tab for my web site up top. On the table beneath my wrists as I type is one of the tablecloths you cross-stitched. I'm now running my fingers along the x'es, thinking of your hands, your touch. It's been a year. I remember a conversation we had once about death.You were thinking about giving up your plot in order to be cremated like dad wants to be (I didn't know you actually made the decision). If you were to be cremated, you asked me, where would I go to remember you? I wouldn't have a tombstone to put flowers on or a quiet place to reflect. I think I laughed and said all that was artificial. Cemeteries can be powerful, but they are no more meaningful to me than, say, sitting on a bench at the public library you and I loved to go to. I'd find a place, I said. Or I wouldn't need a place, for I'd be remembering you always, whenever, wherever. But you know what mom? I understand now. Dad still tears up daily, but me ... you know me. I barely have enough time to breathe, what with the kids and my work and so many little things I have to take care of at this stage of life. Days go by and now look ... it's been a year. I get little pings of sadness that I can't share certain things with you, especially about the kids. Dad loves them of course, but he isn't genuinely awed by their little silly achievements the way you used to be (and no one else but Alex's mom could be either). But then I get swooped up by the tide of my to-do lists and then. And then. A year. How is it you've been gone a year? And so I came to NY this weekend to be with dad and honor you. Dad talks, I listen. We go for walks. Eat out (of course). We've watched three Woody Allen movies. Last night -- Sunday night -- I remembered a similar Sunday night a year ago when dad called and said, "mom's dead." That's how he said it into the phone. How else to say it? He said he remembers me screaming, heaving, over and over again, "What? What? What? What? What?" I guess what I understand now is that I do need to set aside time to think, to reflect, to feel, to remember, to be sad again, to honor, to look at old photographs, to move on. Dad and I are about to take a walk. Not to the library, just in a pretty setting somewhere and I think that'll feel good. We'll talk about you, I hope. Or maybe we'll mostly just be silent. This and the walk .... these are my flowers on your grave, mom. I love you.