About this time in 2000, maybe a bit later in the year, I sat at the kitchen table with the telephone in my left hand and a list of names in front of me. I phoned every person on that list and explained that although I didn’t know what their plans were for the holidays if they wanted to spend Christmas with my mother this would be their last opportunity.

I said, “If she is alive next year, she won’t know that we’re there.”

The response was great. Lots of people came by and that Christmas my mom saw all of her family. She died on November 28. 2001.

She is on the far right in this photo which shows her with two of her grandchildren and a daughter-in-law. I snapped this photo in the mid-1970s, when I was still young enough to confuse the term ‘now’ with the word ‘forever’. Since then not only my mother but also the daughter-in-law and one of the grandchildren have died. The youngest little girl, now a beautiful woman, is a cancer survivor despite her medical treatments having been sidetracked by the pandemic.

Don’t put it off.

Love the people you love.