Disclaimer: I am only going to do this once for this entire story. I don't own anything. Please don't sue. This story was born out of the end of ' A Little Piece of Heaven." It is a continuation of the lives of Bosco and Faith and their three children. I hope you all enjoy.

Heaven's Gate: Moments In Time

I sat down at my kitchen table today and started to make a scrapbook/journal of my life and Bosco's and the lives of our children, detailing times and places that we had been, moments that we could never visit again, except in our minds. Little pieces of paper, finely colored and shaped, made borders for the pictures of the family that I loved so much. Red, Blue, Green, Yellow: Stickers, glitter, cut-outs, all adorned the pages of my book, making an ordinary photograph seem extraordinary and brilliant. Newspaper clippings of my kids at baseball, school photos and mementos made up a wonderful memory book for all of us to enjoy. Scrap-booking had become a serious hobby of mine during my retirement years. I had never been one for crafts when I was younger but I had done a great deal of changing in my mannerisms and interests as I grew older. I was more mature, at ease. Definitely not the woman I was thirty or even forty years ago. Time had changed me, as it does to all of us. But when I looked in the mirror and saw my image staring back at me, I was pleased with what I saw, what I had overcome and become.

As I pasted pictures into my book I thought of my two eldest children who were no longer with me. How long it had been. How long, the days and years that had passed since I had seen their faces or heard their voices. If Emily and Charlie had still been alive, they would have been 42 and 37. It is hard to believe that I had Emily when I was eighteen years old, still a kid myself. I still longed to hold them in my arms, as I had for all those years after they died. They had been gone for 26 years and sometimes it still felt like yesterday to me. If I hadn't had Bosco, I know that I surely would have ended my own life. I thank God every day for him and the strength he gave me, and still gives me.

Our children have all grown up and it fills me with a kind of sadness to know that they no longer need their mother the way they used to. Mikey; who won't answer to anything but 'Mike', is now twenty-six years old and is a police officer at the same precinct that his father and I worked at for twenty-five years; the 55th. Brett is now twenty-four and teaching writing courses at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Emma is twenty-two, married and the mother of my beautiful granddaughter, Emily Faith.

Faith is a year old now and I still can't believe that I am a grandmother. Bosco, on the other hand, took on his role as a grandfather as though he were born for that very day. From the moment that little Faith arrived, he was completely enamored by her every move. He delighted in every moment he got to spend with her and volunteered us to watch her anytime Emma and Rob had to go anywhere, be it the grocery store or the bank. Time had changed Bosco, too, and mellowed him to the point that I wondered if he was having a hearing problem by times. Don't get me wrong, he was still the same old Bosco in many ways, but the years had refined him and made him more confident and secure within himself and he was now less easy to anger and more likely to just let things go. After being married to him for twenty-eight years, nothing surprised me about him. It was amazing for me to still be in love with the same man after all of these years.

I sat down with the intention of putting every part of our lives down on paper where we could look and read about the times that were so precious to us and I knew that there would never be enough time or paper or pictures to fill up the glorious adventure that we call life.

My babies are on their own. I am almost finished here but before I go, I have much to say and so little time to tell it all, that I will continue to write about my life for as long as I can and hope that someday all of my children and grandchildren will sit down and read the words that came from me.

I know that my story is a long one, my years have blurred into one giant memoir that I keep close to my heart. This is a collection of places and events that I want to remember. They are the words of my life, of my love and they will always be a part of me.