As a special for Valentine’s week, I thought we’d take a pause from our usual color palettes to celebrate love stories-stories between couples, friends & family. To begin the week I wanted to start with a poem from my father to my mother. My father and mother met when they were in kindergarten, married at age 21 and 20 in 1954 and celebrated 56 anniversaries until my mother’s passing in 2010. My mother had Parkinsons for nearly 20 years and my father cared for her day in and day out at our family home and was at her side when she passed one Sunday morning in the month of November. At the end she couldn’t speak, nor really open her eyes, but he said right before her last breath she said clear as a bell, “kiss me”. So he did and she went quietly, with the love of her life and her best friend at her side. My father wrote two poems about this kiss.

Last Kiss

A Kiss