My mother died this morning. She's had Alzheimer's for four or five years now, and we knew it was coming. Nevertheless it's still a shock when it happens. She was a great woman, having raised seven kids, six of them boys. It's hard to imagine how it could have been done and yet to have remained sane. And she was. She had such prodigious reserves of patience and kindness, deeply spiritual, fiercely loyal in that feisty Irish way--always in your corner no matter what. How do you sum up a life such as hers? By their fruits, you will know them, and she was fruit-full in so many ways, and on so many levels.