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I think my Mom must be getting a little senority up there in Heaven. Not that seven years is a long time to be there, next to eternity, but it must be enough to slip a request or two through when it comes to sending things our way down here.

November in Rochester is usually a pretty dreary time. After Halloween, we don’t often see the sun until April or May. Last November, and the year before that, we followed the template.

This November second, I think Mom’s annual requisition for a beautiful day finally made it through. I spent my lunch hour walking along the small-town streets of Honeoye Falls, watching the late-autumn leaves fall around me as if in slow motion. The noontime light made the buildings glow, and the village looked like I remember it looking on all those Mom’s-taxi trips to school, scouts and friends’ houses.

No one’s memory is perfect, and the good things that mine retains usually tend to yellow around the edges. When I think about times spent with my Mom – or with my family – they’re usually overlaid with a touch of haze, soft around the edges, cast in that warm, comforting light. This usually breeds disappointment when I return to the places featured in the memories, only to find a boringly clear view through the eyes of the unaugmented present.

But once in a while, I can experience memories now the only way it’s possible: since those flickering mental pictures of years past can’t be reconciled with the world of the present, the world makes due and bends around to match the memories.

Yesterday, during my stroll through the Falls, I didn’t need imagination to return to what now seems like a past life. All I had to do was look around, and take in the beauty of the real-life memory that Mom sent my way.