The tv would be turned to the Macy's Parade, with the sound of clattering dishes coming from Mom's kitchen or the rustle of the Columbus Dispatch from over in her easy chair could be heard, amid an occasional "Hey Mom, you got to see this" were the norm.

Not so this year.

Several serious health issues of hers changed both of our lives forever this past summer.

She went into assisted living and I put on hold my plans to move into the desert climate of the southwest, so I could be nearer to her.

As I watched her today, I felt more love than ever for this strong woman of faith and I thought about the steadfast and unchanging love of the God she taught me about ever since I could remember.

It was that same God that has sustained me these last five months or so when every aspect of my life seemed to be tossed into the air and had fallen around my feet in pieces.

I "tweeked" a song by the group Abba to make it tell of how my relationship of Mom and mine has changed in the last five months:

Sachel in hand, I leave for home in the early evening, waving goodbye with an absent minded smile. I watch her as I go, with a surge of that well known sadness......

.....and I have to sit in the quiet for awhile.

A feeling that I'm losing her forever, and without really entering her world. I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter. I'm her funny little girl.

Slipping through my fingers all time, I try to capture every minute. The feeling in it.

Slipping through my fingers all the time.

Do I really see what's in her mind? Each time I think I'm close to knowing, she keeps on changing. Slipping through my fingers all the time.

Sleep in our eyes, her and me at the breakfast table, barely awake, I've let precious time go by. Then when I've gone, there's that odd melancholy feeling....and a sense of guilt I can't deny.

What happened to those wonderful adventures? The places I had planned for us to go?

(Slipping through my fingers all the time)

Well, some of that we did, but most we didn't, and why, I just don't know.

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture and save it from the funny tricks of time.

Slipping through my fingers.......

Sachel in hand, I leave for home in the early evening, waving goodbye with an absent minded smile............

Love You Mom