Mom's Pie

She was beautiful…a lady to the very end.

These are the words that I remember…the words that comforted me today, long-distance, as I was told,  that my mother slipped peacefully into the gentle stillness of death.

My mother truly was a lady, a genuine southern belle. Not a ditzy maiden batting her eyelashes,  swooning and fainting, but a thoughtful soul with a genteel demeanor…To put it simply, polite. She was born in an age when manners counted for something, when civility was more noble that winning.

She taught me to give the largest slice of pie to the guest…to do for others…to offer my coat to someone who's chilled. She showed me the power of generosity and compassion. She taught me to say please and thank you and to really mean it when I spoke those words.

Everything that is good about me is her doing. And I will miss her very much. But I will always be comforted by those words "…a lady to the very end." She died the way she lived. And when she left us, she left us with a conscious, and with kindness, and with empathy. These are the things that she gave to us…the largest slice of pie.