If I concentrated on the cards, I missed the conversation, and if I concentrated on the conversation, I made a million mistakes with the cards. Whenever we met at our house, you children were like mice, getting into my butter mints and mixed nuts and the little Cokes. I even had skirts to put on the bottles (a gift from Naomi) and cloth napkins embroidered with the different card suits. My favorite part of being in that club was eating butter mints and smoking. I had smoked Salems for a long time, but then I switched to Virginia Slims, because I loved the commercials. I liked to think I had indeed “come a long way, baby.”

Frank always asked if I really enjoyed that time with bridge group, and then he commented that it sounded like a henhouse brothel for the mentally impaired with talk of “tricks” and “rubbers” and “dummies.” It seems such a joke would get old, but it didn’t, or hasn’t; it still makes me laugh, even though I gave up bridge to volunteer, and that made me feel better about myself. I think Frank then thought I was spending too much time in sad situations (the burn unit, where I read to children, the grief support groups, where I served coffee). And maybe I did get too close sometimes. Maybe I didn’t have cheerful and uplifting things to tell when I came home. Maybe that’s the difference between a game and reality.

My two cents: Go to the dentist twice a year. Floss. Get your physicals. Be honest. Be kind. Wear good, comfortable shoes. Let people know what they mean to you. Bring your children to see their grandparents. Always have extra Halloween candy. Drink lots of water. Make sure your children have pets and lots of free time. It’s so important that they know how to be alone.

And thank goodness for you and your children that the days of laxatives are over! I saved several of my mother’s magazines, just as they were by her bed, and over the years, I have enjoyed going back and reading what she was reading at the time, but I have been shocked by all the ads and columns about dosing your children with castor oil for anything that was wrong with them. It didn’t happen to me, perhaps because my mother was not there, but it explains a lot of other people I know if that one psychology course I took in the extended-education program holds true!

What I love about looking at the magazines that were there by my mother’s bed is to see what she had marked with a dog-eared page or a scrap of paper: the recipes and bits of news in Life magazine, like an article called “Men Lose Their Pants to Slack-Crazy Women.” She also marked an ad about getting a canary and how it would lift your spirits and make you sing.