Memory is a funny thing.

It was just days ago, with thanks to some keen savers, I put your grandchild in a sweater you made.

As with every garment of clothing this child wears, it was perfect. The yarn was soft from careful washing and gentle wear, the buttons just as you attached them, and your namesake’s big blue eyes shone. Your memory is alive in the stories we tell RJS, the pictures she sees, and in the music we sing. You would have laugh-cried when you saw her face as MY SISTER and I reenacted a childhood VHS tape from a music class, “the little red caboose.” RJS’s giggles of delight when we added her to the caboose were angelic.

And now, it is just days later, I pull out the candle, and I FaceTime my wife, and the tears flow for somehow 12 years went by in the blink of an eye. I miss you every day, Mom, and I love you forever.