In memory of Paula Pape-Lipson

Making faces across the dinner table.
Making faces out of Wonder® Bread.
Walking alone for the first time on your birthday to steal attention.
Double-Dutch.
Ice skating with "spaghetti ankles."
Rhyming poems.
Big vocabularies and mispronounced words.
Three-part harmonies in the back seat.
Twin outfits, hats, and pigtails.
"To tell time, you have to know how to count by fives."
"You have to move your arms around when you dance."
"Mini-Mom." "Miss Superior." "Pollywog."
"Respect your elders."
"Announce yourself if the lights are out in the basement."
Making fun of your favourite music.
Making flimsy excuses about borrowing clothes without asking.
The good daughter and the rebellious one.
The Itty Bitty Tittie Committee.
Feminine supplies.
"Smeerp" is the sound a kiss makes.
It's not the Birthday Song without the intro.
Hand-written letters, perhaps with confetti enclosed.
The tee-hee spot.
Pussywillows.
Breughel.
Christina Rosetti.
Making soup.
Reading aloud.
Hand squeezes.
Grief.


Until life goes out
Memory will not vanish
But grow stronger
Day by day.

~Anonymous