Dear Mom,

Over the holidays you said something about discovering in your old age that you weren't a good mother. I wouldn't say that you were a bad mother, life was just complicated at times. Being a parent is about doing the very best we know how in the moment. I will say, no matter what was going on, I always knew that you loved me.

I was out in the garden today pulling weeds and placing mulch around the flowers in my shade garden when the sound of guitar came floating over the fence. Our neighbor was playing these gentle melodies, perhaps to pass the time away or maybe to relieve the stress of his day.