I suppose some would say the opposite — that my friend Jeannie looks and sounds just like Diane Keaton — and I suppose it is because we’re friends (and friendship will always get top billing) that as I listen to clips of Diane after her recent passing, I think, she sounds just like Jeannie. 

I mention it because, isn’t it delightful when we see it! See the parts of each other that we love, passing through. And it’s never just familial. Oh, I do love it when someone says, “you look just like your mother”!  Nothing could make me happier! But even more miraculous, I see my mom in old friends, new friends. 

Shopping with my friend Katie at the Galleria — (and by shopping I mean delighting in the dress-up as she ran to get boots and necklaces and framed my face in the mirror) — the encouraging words of my mother spilled from her mouth, that told me, outright dared me — to feel great about my reflection!  Because if my mother was going to keep passing through, she would pick the Galleria!

And of course I was staying at Jeannie’s condo, next to the Galleria, texting her possible outfits, and hearing back in Diane’s voice, and my mother’s banter, and it is all such a delightful passing, one may even call it a dance. 

I take comfort in it. Daily. Because the passing is never final, once it begins to dance.