She says my grandmother used to say "keep on keeping on." But that sounds funny to me. It absolutely suits my mother's indomitable spirit.

Mom is slowly reorienting toward home. "Georgie"

and "Francais"

are her constant companions. Although i think she finally feels safe, my heart shattered a little bit more the other night. I checked on her sleeping, and she was curled up with her tattered red cloth purse. Inside? "Francais," her hymnal, lots of tissues, tic tacs (she calls them q-tips now) her glasses, and extra underpants. I think she was afraid she might still not be home or that we'd take her somewhere else and she'd get lost. In case 'home' was just a dream,  she had her purse ready.

I was reading her hymns today. She had underlined in one that starts "Holy Father, Thou hast taught us..." the line that comes in the second stanza:

"Keep us from our own undoing."