Meanwhile, my mother, who hated to entertain, whose anxiety dreams always involved company coming over unannounced or not having enough food to serve on Thanksgiving; my mother would receive gifts over time - wedding, anniversary, business gifts. Trays, punchbowls, coffee service, chip-dip sets. Beautiful items that would mostly stay in their original boxes in the basement, in the hope that there would never be enough guests in the house to actually necessitate their use.

Dear God, keep me from ingratitude. Because despite all my complaints, life is precious, and the delicacy of these bodies we live in makes it only more so. And if I feel the difficulty of it sometimes more than I feel the wonder of it, well, we are creatures of earth and our clay concerns us. But really, I am - we are - so grateful to be here in these bodies that have been really much trustier than not. I am grateful for lungs that have breathed through this day, and for this heart that has beaten so many times a minute, over a thousand minutes a day, nearly 20,000 days of my life and counting. I have owned cars both American and foreign, and have seen many finely made appliances and Apple products too and nothing made by man or machine can compare to what you set in motion on this planet.

It's good to be home I think. Although I am suffering from performance anxiety tonight, wondering how to even form words at this moment. Because I am freshly back from shiva, having dusted and vacuumed and locking the door behind me on the house I grew up in, a house only ever lived in by Kellers, standing now without occupant for the first time since 1958. A house that, like me, has undergone a great loss but doesn't yet feel that way.

One of six eulogies delivered today to say farewell to my mother, Marilyn Keller.