There are those small, nasty moments, when everything bursts into flames and crumbles into pieces.

My mum collects angels. Not the fancy, marble-like, goldish ones, but the funny, child-like, smiling ones. The one before last was called "An Angel of Happiness" (you probably know the kind; they sell them in malls everywhere) -- made of saltine dough, it had a green dress and a wicked smile. It hangs over the fireplace.

Then she bought another one. Smaller, whiter, and more delicate than the former, but still a nice, warm, fuzzy kind of angel.

A "Grandfather's Angel".

We looked one another in the eye on a snowy drive, in the middle of a shiny, sunny, crusty, winter morning at home, and we knew.

There's a hole in both of us; a hole that nothing could possibly fill.