Minster Lovell, Oxford, England 197-.

When I was seven to ten years old, I begged her to let me stay home from school so I could hang out with her, picnic in the park behind our house (she made cheese and tomato sandwiches), just be nearby as she read the New Yorker and I played with my toy farm animal collection–or I’d accompany her on errands, to the department store so she could purchase more Estee Lauder perfume or Laura Ashley skirts.

And, sometimes, she let me skip school.

RIP Mom.

Neither fire, nor wind, birth, nor death can erase our good deeds. 

—Buddha