In her last days, my mother occasionally became confused. And to try to ground her, we asked simple questions like ‘What’s your favorite color’ and ‘What’s your favorite song?’ And she couldn’t answer these.

But when asked what her favorite prayer was, she immediately recited (the) Child’s Prayer in German, that she used to say (to) my eldest brothers and sisters at bedtime, when they were living in Munich in the late 1940’s. Her favorite memory of prayer was a young mother tucking in her children. We were the light of her life and she let us know it ‘til the end.

And that’s it. Thank you for listening. Now we can get to the truly important work of television broadcasting, which she would want me to do. When I was leaving her last week, I leaned over and I said ‘Mom, I’m going back to New York to do the show.’ And she said ‘I can’t wait to see it. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

So, with that in mind, this… is The Colbert Report.