Bite. Pull. Tear. Quickly: lick the juice before it streams a forearm's length. This morning I stood above my kitchen sink peeling an orange for breakfast. As I sloughed the thick rind, bearing the translucent juice-bursting slices, I thought of her. And when I thought of her, I thought of Christmas. Every year, when my sisters and I were growing up, and as long as she was able in her last years, my mother plunged an apple and an orange and some shelled nuts into the toes of our Christmas stockings. I took it for granted that they'd be there bulging in the stocking toe and thought it a bit odd. But it was as I grew older and merged into adulthood that I came to appreciate all that her generation–"The Greatest"–endured. And, finally, I got it. I understood the mystery of the stocking stuffed fruit and the story behind it.

As we dissected the contents of our stockings each Christmas, Mother was just a tad wistful as she told us, year after year, the meaning of this age-old tradition. But more than wistful, she was joyful, relieving those memories, like a kid on Christmas–which it was–and sharing them with us. She was not sad, in those moments, about the poverty in which she grew up, she was happy relieving the abundance of rare fruit on Christmas morn….Most times, oranges and apples are something that I give little thought to other than delighting in the plethora of favorite varieties at the market and enjoying them almost daily during cold months. I buy nuts unshelled year-round, pausing only to smart from sticker shock. But to mother, to a little girl growing up during The Great Depression, these were items of true luxury. A delicacy. A delight. These things, these things I buy so casually, were rare during her hard-knocks childhood. They meant Christmas for a poor little girl.

And today, as I peeled that taken-for granted orange, I stopped and glanced at the calendar. Yep. December 7. It was this day in 2008, three years ago, that mother left us. And then finally, this spring, my father would follow her–nearly two-and-a-half long, difficult years for my family.

It is important for me to remember as I sort through the storehouse of lifetime memories–mine and hers and of my father's–that I take stock of what she endured, what she lived through to become who she was. Of all that formed her and thus formed me. Not always so pretty….It is what it is. Was what it was. And now it is up to me to say thanks, be grateful, remember. To Love unconditionally with unfettered compassion though she may not have always been capable of that for me. Now it is up to me to nurture and mother the me of yesterday, of today and tomorrow. I have been given my legacy and now it is my choice to write the ending….And, so…I am.

Once more, Mother: Goodbye. Thank you. I love that I often think of you when eating oranges. It is but one small way that you continue to live within me forever.

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It is difficult to launch an e-book when you keep thinking you're done but then the essays keep arriving in on the muse of emotion and memory. But it is in formation and planning still: Sandwiched: Death, Dying, Aging Parents and Their Adult Children. You'll be the first to know when it is finished and yours to download.