The small memorial candle on the stove top flickers gently. Today is my mother’s yahrzeit, 2 Tammuz in the Jewish calendar. I had to check how many years it has been since she died; I do not hold it easily in my memory. It was 2013. Seven years. I sometimes joke that our relationship has gotten better and better since she died, but really it’s not a joke. My empathy for her feelings and needs - what was alive in her - continues to deepen. I sometimes recognize them alive in me too. Today I mourn that I did not have the skills to be present with her in a more actively compassionate way, when it might have made a difference for both of us. I have access to those skills now, and to honor her memory I intend to practice them at every possible opportunity. Love you Mom.