My daughter brightly chirped, “The outdoor market we’re visiting is just a short walk from here.”

I chuckled. I’d heard Tammie say, ‘It’s just a short walk from here’ every day, sometimes several times each day, since we’d arrived in Rome a week and a half earlier. She especially liked to share this information within moments of stepping out of a bus or subway car to reassure me we wouldn’t be walking a long distance. Often, the two blocks felt like miles to me.

Each small shop called to me as we passed, “Stop and shop!” I was drawn to a leather purse, a table runner, and a bottle of Limoncello. Although I’d shopped every day for the last ten days, everything looked fresh and interesting as though I was seeing it all for the first time. Tammie laughed at my enthusiasm. I grimaced and admitted, “You know what’s going on, here, don’t you? We’re flying home tomorrow, and this is our last day of vacation.” Pausing, I continued solemnly, “One summer day when your grandma had terminal cancer, she shared with me that the sky had never looked bluer, and the tree leaves never looked more vibrantly green to her.”

My daughter nodded in understanding of my analogy and added, “Knowing she’d never experience another summer, she wasn’t taking anything for granted.”

The narrow Italian street we were walking, came to a large open, cobblestoned, oblong piazza, filled with water fountains, statues, and crowds of people. Tammie asked, “Do you remember this place?”

Amazed, I looked around and exclaimed, “We visited this place on our second day in Rome, but we entered from the side furthest from where we are now.”

Pointing to a side street, Tammie announced, “The open market is one block away. I can see some sales booths from here.”

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