June 22, 2024- I was sitting on my bed, in a room for married students, at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. It was a Sunday morning, in 1986, and the two of us were planning our respective study days. We were both Graduate Students, I seeking my initial Master’s Degree and Penny, her second.

The analog phone rang and Penny answered. Mom was on the line and asked to speak to me. “Are you sitting down, Honey? Dad died this morning.” Just like that, my world joined hers, in collapse and disarray. I was, however, 35 years old and had to make some quick decisions with my wife of four years. After telling Mom that I would be in Saugus as quickly as possible, I made flight arrangements and packed. Penny would be unable to join me on the flight, as she had a major language exam, the following weekend. We went shopping for all that she would need while on her own, without a car. I then set out for Phoenix, and by midnight, EDT, I was across the country, in my childhood home, embracing my dear mother, then sleeping in my old bed.

The next morning, she told me that she had just been covered by a cold touch. She thought it was Dad. Having been visited by my maternal grandmother, shortly after her death, in 1960, I made sense of that. (I would later, as Penny was transitioning in 2011-, feel a full ectoplasmic presence in our bedroom, though she was in a hospice room, 20 miles to the northwest.) The departing reach out to their loved ones. (This afternoon, I heard two distinct whispers, while I was helping someone put a long folding table into a truck. The co-worker wasn’t whispering, and no one else was around. I have heard nothing further about Mom’s condition, but I am sure she is trying to communicate with me.)

Mom has always been direct with people; no mystery has ever existed, as to where one stands with Lila Mae. I could never even so much as fib to her, without her knowing exactly where the truth was being told and what part of my story was pure Blarney, or as she put it: “Bushwah”. At some very primitive level, that remains in her psyche, even in these last days. I would probably still be bopped upside the head, if I entertained an untoward thought.

When she thought we were being absurd, out came the Irish oath: “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” She would later say that she was merely praying,but there was no mistaking the message. Each of us was always expected to do better-and excuses were given no quarter, in my mother’s court. At the same time, when one of us did well, or had a hopeful development, there was no more exuberant cheerleader.