Chain smoking sadness, slapped by time.
Winter doesn't freeze the pain.
There was one thing that
Mom wanted more than
anything else in the world:
It was to have a
picture of her
seven kids all together,
in one place,
at one time.
There was an age
difference of
23 years between the
youngest to the oldest,
and 1000 miles separating us.

In December of 1987
two weeks before Christmas,
I held a picture of
the seven of us all together.
I put it in the
right front pocket of
her navy blue blazer.
After the funeral,
we buried her with it.