My heart is broken. I buried my mother and my best friend last week and I feel as though a truck has driven through the middle of me.

My mother and I had one of those relationships where store clerks thought we were sisters. She always dressed younger than I did and she relentlessly tried to get me to wear more make makeup and nicer shoes. Sometimes she won, but most of the time my stubbornness kept lipstick off of my face.

But what I miss most about my mother is her comfort. She was the essence of comfort. Being in the same room with you made you feel as though life was OK. If the country was at war, if I made a terrible mistake speaking at a conference or whether one of my kids was in trouble, when I sat in the same room with my mother, I felt that I could make it. Was that her personality, her voice, her attitude that gave me that overwhelming sense of calm? I don’t know. As a writer and professional observer of people, I am at a loss to pinpoint what in her being exuded the sense to others in her…