Dear Merri,

I miss you so much. Your daughter told me you can't talk, write or read. I promise you that Amelie adores visiting you in Boston. She eagerly yearns to see you - to be near you - to touch you and to read letters to you. I wish visitors were allowed in the intensive-care unit, just so I could hold you.

Your last e-mail was on April 22. You thought that years of agony would finally be behind you. ''Next time we talk,'' you wrote, ''I'll be on my way to recovery.'' And in gigantic red letters you put, ''NO MORE CUSHIES!'' - your funny word for Cushing's disease. You said you'd only be in the hospital a week. I wish things hadn't gone so terribly wrong. I can't believe you've been in the ICU more than three months. And Amelie says you'll be in a Boston rehab center for up to four months.

You were ecstatic in April. ''The time has come. I want this party started! I'll be all better! I am so excited about the beginning of a return to joy in my life!'' Merri, thank God you didn't know what lay ahead.

Sweet one, you are my inspiration - as well as an over-the-top goofball. Remember wearing your sparkling red Dorothy slippers to lunch? Even though your feet were fractured, you insisted we meet. You could walk only on the outsides of your feet because of the pain. You didn't care. Seeing me mattered more. That day I gave you a snow globe. As you watched the snowflakes gently twirling in the glass ball, you cried. I didn't know how much you loved snow globes.

Since you've been gone, I've been calling your home just to hear your voice. Your answering-machine message was, ''It's spring. Daffodils and tulips are swayin' in the breeze.'' Now there's no message. I can't hear your voice. I've been reading your old e-mails. One was, ''Only 54 days to spring. I can hardly wait!'' I wish you hadn't spent your favorite season in an ICU.

Amelie has inherited your ''stand up and fight'' gene. When she confided in me about a situation that bugged her (not involving you!), she said something like, ''Nobody's going to tell me what's right when they don't know what's going on like I do.'' And once, when talking about you, she said, ''They don't know what a fighter my mother is. If anyone can do it, she can.'' Dear one, that gene is still in your DNA. The time has come to call upon all of its reserves. Merri - if it's ever been ''fight back'' time, it's now!

Remember when I was unhappy, and though you were sick, you made chicken soup from scratch and brought it over with flowers and ice cream? Now it's your turn, Merri. You must transform yourself and learn to accept help. When Bob walked your dog because you were in pain, you sat in your car crying. You said, ''I can't believe someone would do this for me.'' Merri, I will help you when you come home. You just have to let me.

Amelie told me you loved the snow globe I sent. She said, ''They don't allow things in the ICU, but the snow globe could stay because she loves it so much. They also let her have a CD player. She loves Fleetwood Mac.''

Merri, Amelie will read this column to you. As you watch the snow globe's sparkly flakes swirling around the flowers, will you listen to Fleetwood Mac at the same time? There's a line they sing I hope you will say to yourself a trillion times a day.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow.

Love,

me