through the windshield of my 5-speed Honda Civic packed to the gills, my eyes fix squarely on the 89 year old figure of a woman that is my mother staring back at me through the same glass barrier. Her little, aptly named, Ginger dog stands a few feet in front of her on the crisp frozen grass of her front lawn in rural upstate new york.   

Our cameras raised, we simultaneously snap photos of each other — me with my heavy full frame and her with a light-weight, wallet-sized point and shoot.   Clearer than ever, I see me in her, her in me.  She sees me in her and her in me.  Lives intertwined moving in opposite directions, our cameras give way to gravity and pensive farewell waves.

This is hard for her -- her youngest now in her 5th decade leaving for months on a long road trip to places she no longer visits and some she never will.   She worries about my safety and wonders if she will ever see me again.   I know quite well by now, how she thinks.   On the other side of the glass I pause and wonder the same about her,  the snapshot of her waving goodbye etched in my mind as I shift into first gear...