<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"My Dad is here visiting and we&amp;#039;ve been kid-free since Thursday, when Peter picked them up. They come back tonight, and both Dad and I have missed them fiercely. It&amp;#039;s left Dad and I a chance to go and do some not terribly kid-friendly stuff like seeing good (but boring to kiddos) movies and going out to eat at a restaurant with (gasp!) tablecloths. We did exactly that on Saturday, dining on fine Italian food courtesy of a gift certificate gifted by a client at work. We sat there in the candlelight, and I raised my glass and said &amp;quot;To you and Mom.&amp;quot; Dad smiled, our glasses clinked, and he said &amp;quot;Today would have been fifty-five years, you know.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I know,&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s why I wanted to do something special. I know I&amp;#039;m a poor substitute, but I&amp;#039;m a cheap date, at least!&amp;quot; I waved the gift card with a smile. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re a fine substitute. You have a lot of your Mom in you.&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t think he could have said anything nicer. You know, when I was in high school, growing up and being like my mother was the last thing I wanted. She was a homemaker, a high-school dropout, and never held more than a part-time job back when my Dad was taking some college classes. To teenage me, she didn&amp;#039;t seem to have done much with her life. Now I&amp;#039;m old enough to see just what I got from her: her sense of humor, her selflessness, her nurturing instincts, her kindness. If someone can remember that about me a decade after I&amp;#039;m gone, I&amp;#039;d say I&amp;#039;d accomplished plenty with my life. So here&amp;#039;s to my parents, who really did live &amp;quot;till death do us part.&amp;quot; and to my mother, who wrapped us all in love. I&amp;#039;m not really celebrating Christmas without her. She&amp;#039;s been here inside me all along. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/a46630/feeling-magic-again/>