January 7 2026


Dear Mom, 

 This will be the fourth birthday that you are not around. It's hard to believe that come July it will be 4 years since you died. Time drifts away.  You seem so far away, and yet close.

 You always said that having a birthday so close to Christmas was no fun. You also always said that it almost always snowed on your birthday. Today it is not snowing. At least not here in the Poconos or in your hometown in New Jersey. Amazingly it is a warm day for January. One of the warmest days we've had in a while. The ice is actually starting to melt a bit.  (Although it made for a treacherous walk to the mailbox this morning; I should have waited, but I had something I wanted to put out for the mailman to pick up; if they actually pick up!) We may not be very far into winter, but it's been a cold one and so I am grateful that today is "warm" (at least as far as winter goes). 

 It's also been a snowy one. Last year we probably had our plow company out four or five times over the season. This season we had the plow company out five times in December only.   It's going to be a long winter.

 Which is a big change from last year when we had very little.  There are many other big changes.  You were around when the house we lived in was "renovated"  (It's not too much fun living next to the house you grew up in when the house you grew up in really doesn't exist anymore...it would be more tolerable if the people who lived there were friendlier, but...)  The shore house, which I sold, doesn't exist anymore. I knew that would happen, but it has been confirmed and I don't think I can go back there because nothing is what it was and I want to hold onto my memories.

The only thing that IS the same is the house you grew up in.  Well I know it has changed somewhat since you were a kid living here, but it is basically unchanged since we moved in back in 1995.  It really does need some serious help, but it's overwhelming and since I spend most of my time in the Poconos, I've let it stay on the back burner (just as I have for over 30 years).  It's really more of your grandson's house than mine at this point.  (Hopefully that will become something official over the next 5 years or so.)  And you would like that because he really cares for the house.  Although he has turned the sun parlor into an art studio.  Which is a good thing, as it's being used more than it has in the past.  He's also kept this house neater than I ever did.  (Maybe the cleaning gene skips a generation?  I try, but...)

 For your birthday, I know he will go the cemetery.  For him it brings about a sense of calm; I never got that.    I never have.  I think of you and dad often.  Mostly because I have a little "nook/shrine" in the entranceway in PA that is dedicated to the shore and you.  That's my memorial to you.  I see it every day and am reminded of you both.  (As if I needed reminding.) A cemetery just doesn't cut it for me.

 I wish you were here today.  I wish I was visiting you at the shore and celebrating.  I wish a lot of things...I wish I still had your last voice mail (as well as dad's).  They disappeared.  How I'd love to have one of our long conversations on the phone. You were such a talker.  The portable phones in the house were always dying because you were on them so much and they never had much of a chance to recharge.  If only you'd used your cell phone more!

 There are so many things that I wish you'd be around to see.  Your grandson's graduation from high school.  His transition to college.  (I know you'd be proud.)  All the good works that he has done.  To see the new minister at First Pres.  (I know his casual look/dress would drive you crazy.)  And to see this house in the Poconos, which I of course know would never have happened if you were alive.  (Just as the shore house never would have happened when your mother was alive.) 

 I am grateful that you have given me this gift of the Poconos, even as I am sad that I cannot share it with you.  This is the first house that is truly "mine/ours", but it still has touches of you.  I think you'd appreciate that.

On this day, in which we should be celebrating your birth, I miss you more.  I miss dad.  I miss my grandparents.  But I am trying to be grateful for the time that we did have and all that I have been given because of you.

 I Love You.

 Me




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