"Sing Another My Dear Mother"

She was Irish.  And though her father was Italian, she'd always say, "Ah yes well, that's the bit of me little finger there, ya see it?  The rest of me, sure she's Irish through and through don't ya know!"  With her imitation brogue, my Mom would regale us in laughing wide-eyed wonder as she imitated the Gaelic charms of the land her forebears left to start anew in "Amerikee" as they'd pronounce it. 

We had a ritual, she and I, where she'd practice her opera singing and I'd play piano for her, helping her read the special language of music, her "private rehearsal pianist" as she liked to brag of me, and eventually for the entire opera chorus.  Pretty heady stuff for an old paralegal like me, and I've never stopped thanking the Good God who blessed me with this gift, the ability to sight-read music and play by ear.

I wrote my Mother a song after she died on her birthday last year, and though you cannot hear the music, these are the words.  I remember her as she once was, in that picture, her every feature more perfect than the next:

Come and linger one more moment,

stay and sing just one more song -

clear as crystal, high and ringing,

dare I ever sing along?

Best for me to stay and play

the music to each special tune -

Golden Days of Endless Promise,

everything that's gone too soon.

Now you sing in dreams -

haunting me it seems ...

heaven waits with angel's feather,

wait! please stay with me forever.

'Never leave your song unwritten'

these are words you spoke to me -

such a one as you, dear Mother,

everything I long to see.

csr