My best friend, a marvelous, independent spirit today of eighty something, was discussing her immediate family, information she rarely divulged. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she spoke of her father's death when she was just twelve. Looking up at me with old pain etched on her face, she looked very much again like a hurt and lost little twelve year old.

"My family, now just my mother, two brothers and I, seemed so much smaller, emptier, as though its very soul had been sucked out". She sighed and shifted in her chair. "And then before I knew it, before I was ready, I was an orphan."

I hadn't known that she'd lost both parents at an early age. I knew that she'd had a stormy relationship with a mother she described as being rather like a cold fish. But the orphan information was new.

"That must have been really hard", I answered soothingly. "How old were you when your mother died, then?"

"Fifty three", she answered nonchalantly as though she expected no surprise on my part by this revelation.

Had I heard correctly? Had she just told me that she had become an orphan at the tender age of fifty three? I didn't have the courage to pursue all the questions I had so I simply smiled and nodded. The conversation didn't last much longer and I left her home still mildly amused and slightly confused.

I too, had an extremely stormy relationship with my mother. I thought she was the most brilliant, beautiful, popular and talented person on the planet. I also thought she was more than occasionally mean spirited, manipulative, vindictive, hostile, and even crazy. And I adored her. Because she was such a difficult individual, she became a convenient conduit for blame. Her failings as a mother would explain my dismal personal choices, horrendous relationships, and other assorted ills, but I would call no one else for comfort. Her voice was the one I wanted to hear, her hand the familiar touch I desired, her love, always unconditional in time of need, the only love I craved. There were many times of such need over the years as well as years spent bickering or not speaking at all. Someone once asked me if I had any regrets in life. I didn't need a New York second in which to respond in a voice crackling with tears and regret.

"Yes", I answered, "I regret that I wasn't kinder to my mother."

I was well aware of my mother's bitter and sad relationship with her mother. I'd heard the stories of extreme abuse and abandonment. In the

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