So after going through all the stuff at my mom’s house a year ago, I brought more than a few things home because at the time I wasn’t ready to let go of them. The time has come to make some hard decisions and get serious about what I really want to keep and what has to go.

One of the things I bought home was a little framed poem, “Why God Made Little Girls” — the sticker on the back tells me that Mom must have found the print somewhere and then took it to Alvin Decorating, where she spent more than a few minutes — probably an hour or two commiserating with the owner, Mr. Ercums, over which frame would suit the sweet little print. I remember going with her when I was a kid. She would look at this, that and the other, worrying over whether which frame was right. Mr. Ercums would casually pick up a frame piece, lay it against the item to be framed, and she would smile and say, “How do you do that?”

Always one to document things for the future, her neat handwriting on the back indicates she did this in October 1978. I love the print and the frame is perfect, as were all the frames she chose, but I just don’t have wall space to hang this little gem. So I’ll document the poem, author unknown, and then send this on its way to make someone else smile.