A Boxful of Angels

Our last Christmas presents arrived the other day. My sisters Mary and Barbie, who are the executors of my mother's estate, organized various remembrances and keepsakes and sent them to the rest of the family.

The above picture will take a moment of explanation.

Every year my son, Sean, sent each of his grandmothers an angel. Marianne and I started this tradition for him when he was an infant, and it continues to this day for his Grandmother Porter but only to last year with his Grandmother Swanwick. Mom, as it turns out, saved every one. So Mary put them all in an archival box and returned them to him.

My mother died last summer. Millie Swanwick was an O'Brien by birth, and she knew more than her share of heartache -- she lost her husband and her younger son both long before their natural times. But she was a good woman and her children all loved her. An interview I did with her about her childhood in New York City is posted here.