I recently assisted a friend in emptying out her mother’s house.Her mother was a tiny, well- read, Texas native who’d traveled many places in her long life and had quite an interesting cache of beautiful things surrounding her at the time of her death at the age of 96. It was a big job.

I met this woman when I was in my 30’s and she was in her 70’s and we bonded over wildflowers and art. We had so many interesting talks about life and living. She was the mother I wished I had; elegant, witty, charming and gracious.She was known for her fabulous meals but she could make a marvel out of a tin of sardines.She would grill a prospective suitor with her 1,000 questions, and end up knowing more about him than I did. Then there were times we didn’t see one another much, but I knew I was in her heart as she was in mine. She was my southern mother.

And so this process of clearing out her home and accumulations of life, in tandem with her actual daughter, sharing the emotions of this big rite of passage together, was a goodbye on a grander scale, beyond seeing her in her last moments as she slipped away into the next world; even more final and more complete.

I have a few of her treasures. The 60’s butterfly chair and the rattan area rug, a few nicely formed heavy glass vases, some baskets and a favorite Modigliani print.What remains of her materially are the kinds of things she loved and surrounded herself with in her classy modernist style. And those things that I have selectively brought into my home and have already carefully placed, keep alive her love for me and mine for her. And, even though, in the end, they’re just things -which is a line I use with my clients all the time-I feel her warmth and presence every day seeing them and knowing their origin. And just knowing they were hers, what she put her flowers in or where she sat, what pleased her visually, and what things she took delight in, I am once again touched vicariously by her love.