Around 10 o'clock is when I'm usually on my way home, driving down the freeway from a game I've covered. Or on the way home after hanging out with my nephew. I can't call it babysitting anymore. He's 12 now.

When the busyness stops and I'm alone, when the car radio and the TV are off, that's when I miss her most. That's when I start to wonder again what the hell I was doing for most of my life, taking time for so many other people and not as much for her. Living away on another island for eight years, leaving her alone. All the hours I saw her and her friends talking, and I never stopped to videotape something so rare -- local deaf folks conversing in a pidgin form of sign language.

My Mom was one of the last of that generation. They are a precious people who worked hard all their lives and raised children, all pretty much like me -- "normal" and able to speak, hear and function in society without the odd looks. I remember a lot of people staring at me and Mom when I'd sign with her in public. None of it was meant to be malicious, but I never got comfortable with that. Imagine how that feels for people who have no choice but to communicate with their hands.

For almost all deaf folks, it's not just about the hands. It's about facial expression. A smile. The eyebrows. I've never heard a single one of my Mom's friends complain about their deafness. After growing up in an era when sign language was absolutely discouraged -- they'd hit the kids at the Territorial School for the Deaf and Blind if they "resorted" to hand signing -- they made do wherever and whenever they could.

Nobody can stop the human need to hear and be heard, even through silence.

This is the time of night when I often feel like I miss her most. When she would be alone, basically, and I'd change her clothes, put on her diapers, and then and she'd take 10 minutes to rinse her mouth and brush her false teeth. Then walk her to bed, where she'd take another 5 minutes to drink some water. Then I'd kiss her goodnight and press my forehead to hers for awhile. She'd talk to me with that raspy voice. We didn't need hands to talk then. One time she said, "I changed your diapers when you were a baby, now it's your turn to change mine," and I cracked up. Most times, though, she would just say, "You're a big boy now, grown up. Good boy." And, "Lucky I never smoke, never drink, and all of you grew up good." Mostly though, I just liked feeling her head against mine, letting her know that I was there and not leaving her and my nephew until my sister got home. That she'd be safe.

Now that she's gone, I feel empty. Something is gone both from my mind and my heart. I don't know what it is and I can't really explain it, but it happens when I'm not busy. I don't know if I'll ever be the same. Maybe I'm not supposed to be. Maybe it's fair that she took something from me when she departed. Maybe this is the time of day when she's with me again in spirit, when the work is pau and my mind is clear, when her spirit and my spirit can meet again.

I don't like missing her, but I can't avoid it, no more than I can resist breathing air. I know it's pointless to be mad about it, be mad about how she passed. How could anyone be mad at God for giving us such a good mother and allowing her to be here for 82 years?

So I try to accept it and try to move on. The things that made her smile and made her happy were so simple. A lot of those things had everything to do with her children, when we were little, and now, her grandchildren.

It's theraputic, in some way, to write about her when I can. Most times, though, I just deal with it and feel thankful nobody else is around. Sometimes I wonder if it's normal to miss her this long, every night. Sometimes I wonder if it's healthy to feel a little angry. I realize now that the tears aren't because she's gone. I know she's in a place where she feels absolutely loved, totally free. I know the tears come because I felt more connected to her in the past three years than I ever had in my life. I wasn't ready to let go of her. Not yet. I lost more than my mother.

I lost my oldest friend. That month when I was sick and unable to visit her, I know she needed me. I couldn't be there. How do you tell your friend something like that when she waits there for you, day by day, and she can't hear you, and she won't remember why you aren't there?

I know, in my heart, that she knows now why I couldn't be there in that last month. But inside, I still ache. I'm waiting for that to stop.

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