99 pictures of Mike on the wall

James has spent hours working on putting together a slide show of photos of Mike for tomorrow's memorial service. We had 99 of them and seven or eight songs and he wanted it all to play together. I think we have it now. We can play just the photos during the service and the photos and music at the reception.

We made it to Savannah at about 5 this afternoon after driving through driving rain for five hours and eating lunch at a bad Mexican restaurant. My mother andChristina were here already -- James picked them up at the airport and Christian picked up Janet's mom.

We all wound up in Rob's and my motel room, together with Justin, who's from Cary. It was a very silly evening and I'm sure our laughter disturbed some of the other people on our floor. I'm sorry about that. I hate it when people do that to me.

But we were telling funny Mike stories. He told all his friends I'm a virgin... "My mom never did it!!"

I'm glad he died believing that if he needed to.

Christina decided to get a room at the same motel as James and Justin so she could spend some time with some young people. She's always taking care of everybody else, so I'm glad she's getting a night off.

But my mother was upset about it and started to cry. She has never been this far from home -- she saw her first palm tree today -- and she was a little scared to spend the night alone.

That got Christina in a tizzy, so I took her out in the hall and we sat up against the wall and talked. I explained that women of my mother's generation sometimes fall back on the only thing that used to get them what they wanted -- tears.

Then I told her about Nana, my maternal grandmother and the most sour person ever to inhabit the planet. She used to swoon and faint to get what she wanted. Eventually, the family got so used to it they stepped over her when she did it.

So we went to talk to Mother and told her I'm just two doors down. Christina wrote my room number on the mirror with lipstick, then sat and made her Grams laugh. They played with Idiot Bear, which now belongs to Christina. Later, Christina put three pillows next to Mother and told her to pretend it's Bob and then put another pillow next to her feet and told her it's Duncan, her scrawny 20-year-old cat.

Once she was all settled in, Christina left with Janet, James and Christian to get some sushi at a place that stays open until 4 a.m.

James and Christian were hilarious, playing off each other the way thet did when Mike was around. Justin stretched out between one of the beds and the wall and we kind of forgot about him until he sat up. Rob thinks Justin would make a good secondary character in a sitcom. The drugs and alcohol he did before sobering up a year ago took their toll, but Justin is a sweet, kind kid.

"You know those guys think Michael walked on water," my mother said.

I keep hearing about how many lives he changed, how his spirit inspired people.

I got to be his mom. How cool is that?