Today is Good Friday, a time of quiet. My 79 year old friend Chris calls to see if I am available next week to take her to the doctor. I am. I ask her if she wants to go to church Saturday Eve and she says yes. I tell her I will take her there.

Yesterday I came early to plant class and saw Sophie, my 97 year old friend. I tell her she is my true love, my girl friend and I ask her not to cheat on me. It is our standing joke. She is going for eye lid surgery and is worried only about getting into a cab. Her legs are so stiff in the morning, she says. She is so lovely and lively.

Another treat: the horticultural therapist (read plant lady) arrives. She is in charge of our Times Square garden. It is too early, she says, to discuss what we will plant. Impatiens of course, perhaps bananas--they held up last year. I tell her the Daffodils are coming along.

My mother, if she had lived, would be close to Sophie's age. When it was obvious my mother was dying, my youngest sister snatched, I mean snatched, her from the hospital and brought her to her apartment home. Sis said riding in the car, Mom bounced aroung like a cord of wood. We all sat with her for three days as Mom died. I wrote poem after poem for all. Everybody else partied, at one point lifting my mother off her death bed, putting her in a wheelchair, and bring her to the kitchen, painting her lips with Scotch so she could join her farewell. Such is life with the Claytons, we are a hearty bunch. Middle sister stood in the way when the undertaker finally wheeled Mom out. I wrote no eulogy. But most of my poems were love poems. Easter in two days. I am an usher. I will dress in my best, remembering the powder blue Easter coat my Mother bought me.