Night after night, as was often the case, she’d lean down and push my long hair out of the 36 ,then kiss my forehead.
I don’t remember when it first started 37 me. But it did. Finally one night, I shouted out as her, “Don’t do that any more – your hands are too 38 ！” She didn’t say anything in reply. But never again did my mother 39 my day with that familiar 40 of her love.
With the years passing, my thoughts 41 to that night, when I missed my mother’s hands, missed her goodnight 42 on my forehead. Sometimes the incident seemed very 43 , while sometimes far away. But always it was hidden in the back of my 44 . Now Mom is in her seventies, and those hands that I 45 thought to be so rough are still doing things for me and my 46 . And now my own children are grown and gone. One Thanksgiving Eve, 47 I slept in the bedroom of my youth, a 48 hand hesitantly run across my face to 49 the hair from my forehead. Then a kiss, ever so 50 , touched my brow.
