Ten years ago on May 1 2013 my mother, Carol Cummings died. I thought of Blake's line, “We are put on earth for a little space, that we may learn to bear the beams of love." Sometimes we achieve that by our own efforts and sometimes by what is stripped away.

Her life was a long process of letting go, so many things lost or taken away. But her life was enlarged by the things she carried with her, and it grew larger still as she let go of regrets, resentments. She lost memories and words, til there was nothing left but her smile.

She took me to church every Sunday and imparted her values of fairness, kindness and decency. When I left college to join the Catholic Worker she was initially apprehensive but then said: "We want our children to be safe and happy, but that is not what we want for ourselves...