If my grief over mother's death were a person, this would be the year it could buy its first drink with friends at the bar, slamming the mug down in triumph, froth, crowning, its upper lip, then maybe there'd be singing, or maybe my grief, taking after me, would be a tea-totler, content to drift on the rising tide of its friends besotted laughter. If my grief over mother's death were a person, I'd make a wish that its friends when drunk would only laugh, opening their arms wide for tipsy hugs and slurred, I love use. I remember the year my grief was born, seems like only yesterday, sometimes. I, a grad student, a hundred miles from home, rolling across campus in my motorized chair, would sing aloud, not caring if my spastic throat pulled the tune off key. I needed to sing, to give my voice the power to cut through helplessness, like the prow of an ice cutter through the North Atlantic. My life flows on, in endless song above Earth's lamentation. I hear the sweet, though far off him, that hails a new creation, above the tumult and the strife, I hear its music ringing, and find the echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing? Of course I got noticed, moving through the cafeteria, the song's final notes, trailing behind me, I'd over here. Be such an inspiration, always so happy. The irony sparked, even through my grief-fogged mind. This woman, my mother, daughter of a mathematician, graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, asked me to work magic on her behalf, to arm myself with hope and vision, to battle at her side, from a hundred miles away. Whether she believed the power of thought, could alter the progress of her cancer, or merely deflect, the pity and disgust, that oncoming death inspires, I do not know. But when I was two, this woman, my mother, refused to be cowed by the hospital psychologist, and saved me from a life behind institutional walls. When I was eight, she taught me how to write a letter of protest. She hand-delivered it to my teacher at the PTA meeting that night. The next morning I learned that the authority of justice could make the authority of position tremble. When I was thirteen, in the spring of 77, we rallied together under hand-painted signs, so that I and others could roll across campus. While waiting for the elevator, an acquaintance finds the courage to ask, if I dream of walking or hope for a cure. I say there is no cure, and anyway I'd rather spend my number-day's out in the world, writing stories or teaching children than behind the walls of a physical therapy gym. My answer earns for buke, for giving in to my disability. When I was sixteen, mother fought our town hall for a wheelchair access ramp, and cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony, the mare smiling at her side. I will support you in anything you decide to do, she told me years later, but it's up to you to decide it. And so, for her sake, I sang, and told no one the reason. The waters wide, and I can't cross over, and neither do I have wings to fly, but give me a boat that will carry to, and both shall rule my love and I. Reincarnation, she once said, happened when daisies pushed up from the grave, and bugs ate the flowers, and birds ate the bugs. She assured me that the energy of her life, like the energy of an electron, would be conserved, and if I needed to, I could find her in the downbeat stroke of a crow's wing. In those first years, my grief demanded all my attention and care. Now there are long stretches of silence between us, but it still wanders home in the middle of the night, waking me from dreams. For twenty-one years I have watched for the shadows of crows, and told no one the reason. Until now.