It was a month ago that I last spoke with my mom, last heard her tell me she loved me. In a couple of days, we’ll be at the 1 month mark from her death. It is all so odd. Dad has taken up Mom’s habit of calling every Sunday. The conversations have been stilted, in part because I think neither of us wants to say anything that would make the other cry. Dad is trying to stay busy. He went to Madison yesterday to see the Master Singers perform (a holiday tradition of my parents after they emptied the nest). He is planning to go to Redfield and visit with Mom’s family in about a week. He sorted through Mom’s Snow Baby collection. I don’t recall how long she’d been collecting, but she’d get a couple every Christmas and usually one on her birthday. She had a fairly sizeable collection. Before she died, she went through them all and marked who she wanted them to go to after she died. I think all her nieces and their kids are getting one, as are Mark and I and our kids. I think Dad may be holding on to a couple. It is going to be odd seeing the china hutch without the collection on it.

It also sounds like Dad has gotten through a lot of Mom’s clothes and other stuff. He wants to get it done, I think in part because Mom told him not to hang on to much of anything and get rid of her stuff as soon as he was ready.

I broke down last night after getting an email from Mom’s sister, inviting all of us to their house for Christmas. Honestly don’t know if we’re going there, to Lake Wilson, to Mark’s house, or home on Christmas. Mom used to get things arranged, or at least got people talking about plans, for the holidays. It seems like that role may be falling to me (at least it did with Thanksgiving).

Mom loved Christmas. Last year was not a great one as she was still recovering from the surgery and knew that it would likely be her last with us. I’ve been trying to recall Christmas of 2002. If I’m recalling correctly, we spent Christmas Day with my parents at their house in Lake Wilson – it was Cole’s first Christmas. We’d moved back to Yankton a few months before the holiday.

At some point, I need to go through videotapes we have. At some point, I need to see Mom alive, if only on the screen, if only captured for that brief moment in time.