Odd little quiet moments could be the most haunting.

She had no clear memory of her physical touch, could remember no hugs or tickling of hair in her face when they were playful or snuggly with one another, even as a child. They had never been that way, after all.

So it was other things which brought her back.

She could stand, leaning over the counter in the kitchen at the Inn, buttering a piece of toast, and quite suddenly feel her mother. In this million-times repeated ritual, weird though it was, Emily felt close.

Her mother's usual breakfast of a single slice of toast, a soft-boiled egg, fruit and coffee had remained resolutely consistent through out her life, save the six weeks she'd gone to bed when her daughter left. And because she had once experienced daily life with her mother, had once known the intimate rhythms of her household and all its attendant scents and sounds, for some reason she felt her mother with the toast.

Funny that such a force of a woman as Emily Gilmore should be reduced to a quiet moment of toast buttering. But there you go. With your mother it is the little things too. Not just the hurtful arguments and the rare moments of crystalized connection. And as she stood, buttering toast yet again, feeling her mother steal quietly into her being, hovering with her, she did not well up as she had so often in the beginning. The ache of loss was still acute, but she was able to squeeze back the tears now. This was now part of her morning routine in the six months since her mother's death, along with the toast.

She did fleetingly wonder in what way she might one day haunt her own daughter. What little things would jar Rory suddenly from an ordinary moment into the presence of her departed self? She hoped it would be laughter, or frozen pizza rolls, or maybe even baby blue cashmere. She really didn't want to linger on with something like toast.

And, since she was still pissed at her mother for dying at all, she took a certain mutinous pleasure in knowing that somewhere in the great beyond Emily was surely fuming at being associated with something so common ("It is one of the few foods, the British do correctly, Lorelai, it should only be browned on one side, you know...")

...And, following pattern, she was at once contrite at this wicked thought progression. Truly, she knew, she was angry for the loss, not only of her mother but at what they were never able to achieve between and for one another in life. She'd seen enough Dr. Phil to know that.

So, what-the-hell. You eat the toast and gulp some coffee and shake off your mother, who is not close by at all really, and get on with your day. You think again of your daughter, and wonder what country she is in now, and if she'll remember to call this week. And then wonder if your husband will come home, as he does often enough, silent and uncommunicative.

We are none of us perfect, after all. She knows this about herself too, and that part of her own lacking is the struggle she has to accept the canyons that must come in life. She will instead stretch and stretch to span the distance though she now knows that sometimes you just can't do that. Sometimes your mother really is gone, your daughter blithely progressing through a life far away about which you know little, and your husband has gone through yet another evening having uttered scarcely a word.

She is old enough now to know that this does not need to be tragic. That her mother will be with her again when next she butters toast, her daughter will remember to call at some point, and her husband will shake it off, smile in that way that still bores straight to her true center, and the canyon that had yawned between them all will reseal. Until next time.

And she can remember moments when her loved ones were not standing so far away and blurred. And remembering those moments helps her know that they will come again. That this is the way her world works.

At the house, after her mother's funeral, the women came up to tell her about her mother. As if her mother was a stranger to her. And, of course, she was. You can't ever separate the mother out from the woman. No child can. Even one in her forties. But it seemed like a bizarre kind of advertising campaign. As if they were trying to sell her on her own mother...

'She was so strong, your mother, she could face down anyone. Even The Plaza, darling...'

'She always won, your mother. I can still remember her saying: Creme Brulee is only a fad, Evelyn, it'll be gone faster than you can say Cherries Jubilee, my dear. Always go with a classic mousse... And she was right, of course. Your mother was always right.'

'My dear, I will never forget the way she shamed Henry Lowenstein into bidding higher! She was brilliant. It's so sad, really. What will we do without her?'

Well, she had done plenty without her.

Without Emily Gilmore. And yet, now truly without her, she was missing something. And in quiet moments over coffee and toast in the morning, when she felt her mother most strongly, she could only stare unfocused out the window, past the herb garden, and into the trees in the distance.