Today is a beautiful, almost summer day. The sky blue and sunny after more than three days of clouds and rain. Ria's grave was beautiful, the flowers really picking up now and some starting to bloom. I added flowers from Stop and Shop having brought scissors and water with me. I had to clean off the stone, it was covered with bird shit. A pair of mockingbirds were flying around. Ria's stone is one of the highest perches for them, and you can tell they like to use it to spot the next bug they will take to their babies. The date June 15, 1962 kept drawing my eyes. I remember it so well. It was a Friday morning, a little after 3am that she was born. An easy delivery but I was too excited to sleep much and starving when they brought me breakfast on a tray early in the morning. The tray held a card with a baby wearing a graduation cap that said class of 1980. I kept that for her baby book. The breakfast was hash, toast and two runny eggs. (One time in a diner the man in back of me ordered eggs "overeasy, no snot.") He would not have been happy with these. But I ate everything, wiping the plate with my toast. The orderly smiled at me as he picked up my finished tray. "Look at that", he kidded, "you ate the design right off the plate." I was anxious to see my baby. After delivery, they took the baby one way to the nursery, and sent me the other way, to my room. Finally, a nurse stuck her head in the door. "Do you want to see the most beautiful baby in the nursery?" she asked and brought in Maria. And she was beautiful, big, big eyes, rosy clear skin and a soft halo of red hair. I remember staring at her, watching her pulse bobbing in her "soft spot" thinking all kinds of thoughts.

The Soft Spot -that's what Bucky had explained to me when she brought home my baby brother and baby sisters. "That's their soft spot" and she pointed at the top of their head. "The fontanel," she added, impressing me with her knowledge. "Their skull is not quite formed yet. They need that soft spot to be born. But you can never touch them there.....their brains are covered with just that little bit of thin skin." I was horrified, but interested too. A soft spot.

At the grave today, I thought about that soft spot. Ria's death is kind of like that a soft spot that is tender, pulsing with memories. Proof of the love we all felt for her and the love she so generously gave to us. Happy Third Birthday in Heaven, Maria. Love, Ma