My mother used to travel to New England for several years in a row to visit a friend who lived in Rhode Island. She would then visit me at school in Boston. The trips continued even after I graduated and returned to Ohio.

On one such visit, she and her friend Lorna were walking through Boston Common. They had seen the monument dedicated to the pope for celebrating mass in the Common several years previous. Later on the walk, they were trying to remember where it was they wanted to go. Lorna said to my mother: “It’s over by the Pope’s erection.” Then they both stood there and giggled.

So that’s one of the things I’m remembering on this Mother’s Day.