My mom loved music; jazz, the blues, folk music, she even came to enjoy the Beatles and would listen to bluegrass when I put on a Flatt and Scruggs album at their home in Hastings-on-Hudson. But her first love was classical music, particularly opera and most particularly Bach. So, after my sisters called to tell me that our mother had died, I decided to put some of the music she loved on the CD player; some Bach, Beethoven, Billie Holiday, who she heard perform in Cleveland, Duke Ellington, who I know she enjoyed. The first thing to play was the "Emperor Concerto" by Beethoven. It floored me. I was overwhelmed for a moment remembering her, her sweetness and the strength she had.

Aside from a love of music (although not classical), my mom gave me many things. My love of reading is one of her most important legacies, not to only me, but my sisters as well. Not only love for the act of reading, but much of my taste comes from her. We agreed about most authors and books, although I have never made it very far into "Ulysses" and cannot read Henry James, two of her favorites. She loved Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky as I do, and and we shared many other infatuations. She gave me my first, serious "adult" piece of literature ("The Immoralist" by Andre Gide; I reread it once every five years or so) and was always eager to discuss books. It always amazed me how much she remembered of what she had read, often remembering more of a book she read 60 or more years ago than I did of book I had read within the last year.

However, as I have said in other contexts, her most important gift to me were lessons (almost never explicitly delivered) on how to live my life. Like my mother, I was diagnosed with MS in my mid thirties. My mom could be pessimistic and she certainly struggled with her disease, but it never stopped her nor defeated her. Her engagement with friends, family and the world, although diminished, remained strong. More importantly, the sense that it is crucial to keep on was instilled in me by her example. (I have another role model for that, but that's another story.)

Finally, she gave me a vision of how to be when the end is nigh. Forget dignity; in her circumstances that was the least of it. Grant me, whoever or whatever is doing the granting, 1/10th the grace she had. She was relentlessly kind to those who took care of her, and when asked how she was feeling she usually responded that she was feeling better than she had been. She was always attuned to the lives and needs of others, and I am consoled by the knowledge that she was aware of the birth of her first great-grand-daughter, Marabel Shirley Barrett. She will be remembered for many things, but sweetness will be one of the most common adjectives those who knew and loved her will use.

I miss you, mom.