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It's three years since my mother died.

The first night of her wake was May 9, 2004Mother's Day that year. I couldn't wait to see her again. It sounds crazy-it is crazy-because I was devastated at her loss; and yet, I couldn't wait to see her that night even in if was in her coffin, even if she was gone. .I sort of didn't give a damn if no one else showed upI figured most people wouldn't since it was Mother's Day. But I was wrong. I'd forgotten how many of my friends called her Momand they came in droves. They missed her, too.

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My mother had been living with me two years; I'd had to call the paramedics several times, but May 6, 2004 was the first time they took her out "sitting up." They joked with her as they put her into the ambulette: "Annie, it's a beautiful day. You'll be home in no time."

I'd dialed 911 because my mother (a very stoic type) said she didn't feel "right." My mother never complained about feeling illIn fact, she was a nurse and spent many a night besides friends and family member who were ill or dying. But the night before, although she was sleeping and there was no rational reason, I stayed awake. I kept thinking "What if this is the last night she lives?" But I dismissed that notionit was just anxiety, I told myself. But I called the next morning because she never complained. And, I felt so reassured when the paramedics thought she'd been released a little too early from the hospital after she'd fractured her hip. She'd had high blood pressure for forty yearsher pressure, according to the paramedics was good. They thought she had a touch of pneumonia and she was going to be just fine. I thought so, too.

After all, she'd fractured a hip the year before and she'd come back so far she was driving again. Even when she was very ill and the doctors had written her off, she'd told me, "I know they told you I was going to die, but I'm not ready."

That May 5th when she returned after the second hip fracture, she demonstrated to me how she was going to be well again. She placed her hands along the arm of the wheel chair and she stood up. Her eyes were clear, her voice firm. She was going to beat the second fracture.

We had a lovely welcome home Mom dinnershrimp and pastashe even had an espresso and some dessert. She also had a tot of Sambucco in her espresso and she smoked one cigarette. She called my Dad. She spoke to my brother and my nephew. She was happy to be at my houseand looking forward to returning to her own home.

So, never did I think when

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