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Show A PROPER INTRODUCTION-35 blue daisies and yellow roses because they seem whimsical ahjid dreamlike, unexpected. Mother told me that daises were her favorite flower and showed me how to find out if someone loved me by pulling out the petals. "I never do it myself," she told me. "I don't really want to know." During the past Easter vacation I visited Mother for the last time. She was in the nursing home by then, in a room painted bright yellow. She was sitting in a chair next to her bed, tied to it by a sheet around her waist. She looked very tiny. She said something about writing for help to a senator whom she believed was a distant relative, then looked suddenly alert and said, "I have a l i t t le life insurance policy, although it's been borrowed from, and I want you to have it." "Oh, Mother, please don't talk that way," I pleaded. I wonder now why I struggled so fiercely to hide my sudden emotion from her, as if it was a wrong feeling. "No, I want it for you, though it's just a l i t t le bit. It's important for a woman to have something that's her own." It's night again. Laura has come over with George and his wife, Margaret-a prim, unsmiling woman. The five of us gather in a semi-circle around the fireplace, which Geroge lights. I frequently assume the role of fire builder, but on this night I am far too tired. I don't understand why I'm so tired , but I think it is a kind thing to happen to me. I allow it to settle on me like the hands of someone loving. There are polite questions about my job, my life in New York, Laura's coming retirement, Dad's possible transfer overseas again. We ask rhetorically where Paul might be and agree that, though we miss him, it is fitting for him to enjoy |