did. Before I slept, he always came in to sit on the edge of my bed and

once and again he’d forget why and then he’d say, “Ho hum, what am I here for?”

And I’d say, “Good-night, Uncle Frank.”

Then he’d say, “Ho hum! To be sure!” and add “Good-night.” Then from the doorway he would say, “Ho hum, I love you,” and I would whisper, most always very sleepily, “I love you----” and I drifted away on that.

When I was tiny, Chloe began to send me to sleep with the remembrance that I loved someone and someone loved me, and I did it to Uncle Frank when I came, and that started it. . . . Perhaps some people might have thought it funny to hear a bent-shouldered man with a long beard say, “Ho hum. . . . I love you,” but it was never funny to me.

I will always see him outlined against the light from the hall--and silhouetted in that way in my door, and when I do, I hear his voice telling a sleepy little child that she was loved. And I know it was not funny. It was beautiful.