It's the fourth one without her. The day came and went before I realized that it was the anniversary of mother's death. She left us before Christmas, 2008. Time passes. Life goes on. But at times, the volume of memories surrounding her increases. Like now. I've just settled into a new home. A permanent one now. So, nothing stowed away in storage. All of it with me–or all that would fit in my downsized condo. My sister was up after Thanksgiving helping me put the finishing touches on the new abode. She inherited mother's decorating gene. I got her ability to draw, but, frustratingly, not the ability to put things here and there just so.

My sister and I talked about how mother's legacy–my father's, too–surrounded each of us in our homes. Chairs purchased for a song at some New England roadside shop. The pie safe she rescued from Aunt Frances' barn and nailed a pineapple design into each square of tin. The matching pineapple tiles she commissioned an artist to paint and I now use as coasters. A collection of antique pitchers, tins I treasured as a child, a set of her depression glasses, a setting of Spode. Nearly each piece of furniture–warm pine or other wood–given with special instructions for its care, lined with leftover wallpaper. Each lovingly delivered with a story of its origins or even designed by her.

In me I hold her memories. Some not so fond, but around me in my home, she lives on in a way that she also lived in this world. A woman who delighted in and created beauty. As I cherish rare moments of restful quiet, my eyes look around and settle on an antique throw, a toile tray, a special lamp, a chest. Each whispers a story of how it came to me from mother and how it came to her and so on before that.

Four years now. Another Christmas. Another December where she was not around to fill our stockings with odd things like nuts in the shell, an orange and an apple. And yet, she is. She is here, all around me. She left her mark, living on in a place I now call home.

(Some of "The Journey with Grace" posthumous blog posts on my mother, Dorothy Ruth Walker Hammett–South Carolina's first woman residential home builder–are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. I do still intend to compile an e-book about my family's experiences as sandwich generation siblings and our parent's death. Life keeps getting in the way–you know: moving, GraceArt shows, stuff….More importantly, right now, I'm working on wrapping up my second book on the lessons I've learned raising a daughter with autism. Stay tuned and thank you for reading and supporting this writer's creative contributions. I'll be calling on your support more via social media in the months to come.)