Yesterday, I sat with my dad and went through my mother’s index card file of names and phone numbers, of friends to call to let them know. I spoke to a woman who grew up in a house a block from my mother in Newport News, Virginia. She and my mom attended first grade together, and every grade after, graduating from Newport News High. The friend is eighty-seven now, too, a widow, who lost both her sons twenty years ago, to AIDS. We chatted for a long time, talking about her sons and remembering my mother, and other friends they had in common, many now gone.
These days are full of tenderness. xo
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