DEAR ABBY: While visiting my aunt over the Thanksgiving holiday, I noticed your booklet, "Keepers," on her coffee table. While thumbing through it, I came across a poem that made me think of my mother, who died in early September. I was missing her terribly at that moment, and the poem lifted my spirits and comforted me. I asked my aunt where she had gotten the booklet, and she told me she had ordered it from you last spring.

Is it still available, and how can I get some of them? I'd love to share that poem and some of the others in your collection with my sisters and brothers. -- ISLAND GIRL FROM OAHU

DEAR ISLAND GIRL: Please accept my sympathy for the loss of your mother. I'm sure the holidays this year were especially poignant for you and your siblings, but please know that your mother would not have wanted her death to bring you sadness. She gave you life, and would want you to make the most out of every day that you are given.

Yes, my Keepers booklet is still available. It contains some of the most frequently requested poems and essays that have appeared in this column. To order it, send a business-sized, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $6 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby -- Keepers Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Postage is included in the price.)

DEAR ABBY: After 26 years of marriage, my parents seem headed for divorce. My father is the one who wants it, and it sent my manic-depressive mother into the hospital with thoughts of suicide.

Now I am in the middle. My mother doesn't want to talk to my father, so the only information he can get is from me. He has mentioned several times the idea of my moving back home and taking care of her. (He is planning to move out in a month.)

Abby, I only recently got out on my own, and I am enjoying my independence. I love my mother and don't want to lose her, but I am resistant to moving back into a house where I have experienced so much pain. Am I being selfish? What should I do? -- FEELING GUILTY IN THE MIDWEST

DEAR FEELING GUILTY: The person who's being selfish is your father. He's trying to talk you into assuming the responsibility he assumed when he promised to "love, honor and cherish" your mother at the time of their marriage. If your mother were in her right mind, she would not want you to sacrifice your independence. Do not allow your father to guilt you into moving back. This is his problem. Please do not allow him to make it yours.

DEAR ABBY: I have a 15-year-old son. "Max" has just announced that he has a girlfriend. He talks to her on the phone constantly. I have met her, and she's a very nice girl.

I had the "sex" talk with Max. I explained about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and how some girls who say they're on the pill really aren't, and that the pill does not protect either partner from STDs. I also gave my son condoms (only two) and explained that it was not permission to have sex. However, I'm afraid he might not listen and do it anyway. If that happens, I want my boy to be protected.

I have gotten conflicting opinions from friends about having given Max the condoms. Do you think I did the right thing? -- DON'T WANNA BE A GRANDMA (YET) IN MANHATTAN BEACH

DEAR DON'T: I absolutely think you did the right thing, also the intelligent and pragmatic thing -- and in exactly the right order.

DEAR ABBY: My beloved husband passed away in early October, leaving a hobby cabinet filled with expensive items. It had never been kept locked. The keys were always left hanging in the lock. The day before the visitation at the funeral home, my son quietly locked the cabinet, pocketed the keys and took them with him. The next day, my husband's brother told me what my son had done and expressed concern about his intentions regarding the contents of the cabinet as well as the expensive hobby items in my husband's workroom.

I was shocked and upset. I felt my son had violated the privacy of my home by locking the cabinet and leaving with the keys. Therefore, I called him and told him I wanted them returned the next day. My son began crying and saying, "Mom, why are you doing this to me?"

I was perplexed then and remain perplexed as to how he thought I was doing anything "to him" inasmuch as it was he who had locked me out of a cabinet in my own home. I felt then, and continue to feel, that I had every right to tell him I wanted the keys back. A few days later, my son told me he was "crushed, CRUSHED!" by my request.

My son's wife is an attorney. She sees nothing wrong with what my son did, and in fact, has criticized me for my remarks about his "secreting the keys from my home."

Please tell me, was I wrong in wanting the keys returned, and was my son wrong in what he did? Also, what do you think of my daughter-in-law's position? This man is my only child, and he is no longer speaking to me! -- DISTRESSED MOM, ORMOND BEACH, FLA.

DEAR DISTRESSED: You were certainly within your rights to ask for the keys to be returned immediately. That your son would take it upon himself to lock a cabinet in your home and take the keys without first checking to see if it was all right with you, was extremely presumptuous.

My reaction to his reaction when you pointed that out to him is, "The best defense is a good offense." In other words, he was attempting to make you feel guilty for calling him on what he had done. As to his wife's position -- there's a country-and-western song title that describes it perfectly: "Stand by Your Man."

You have my sympathy -- first for the loss of your husband, and second for the loss of your illusions about your child. Please, I urge you, do not allow him to emotionally blackmail you. He owes you an apology.

DEAR ABBY: One of my husband's friends gave me a "white elephant" gift this week. To be specific, it was more like a pink pig gift. That's right -- I got a fuzzy pink pig that snores and says something about eating slop. My husband was given a beautiful leather wallet!

He says I'm being paranoid to think his friend gave me the pig to make fun of me. He says his friend is a prankster, not a critic. I say, how would he like it if we gave his girlfriend a stuffed pig? What do you think about this, Abby? -- FRAN IN ILLINOIS

DEAR FRAN: I think that if ever a gift begged to be re-gifted, it's your fuzzy pink pig. Next Christmas, wrap it beautifully and return it to the prankster. Be sure to include a small container of Pepto-Bismol. It's pink, so it will coordinate nicely. Perhaps it will neutralize some of the acid in the man's sense of humor.

To order "How to Write Letters for All Occasions," send a business-sized, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $6 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby -- Letter Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Postage is included in the price.)

DEAR ABBY: In a recent column, you wrote that only practicing Catholics may receive Communion in a Catholic service. That is not entirely correct, Abby.

Canon law allows members of the Orthodox churches, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Polish National Catholic Church to receive Communion during a Catholic service if they choose to take it. -- CATHOLIC READER IN BOSTON

DEAR READER: Thank you for pointing it out. I suppose it's time to drag out the old wet noodle, because mail poured in from readers pointing out that Communion is a sacrament practiced by many Christian denominations, not just Catholics.

The person whose letter I was answering had written that she was a non-Catholic who, at her Catholic grandfather's funeral in a Catholic church, had been urged by a family friend to approach the altar and take Communion. It was my understanding that only someone who has been to confession -- and is in a "state of grace" -- may partake of Communion in a Catholic church without its being sacrilegious. However, I did not communicate my thought clearly. Mea culpa!

When visiting a house of worship, whether it is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Bahai, etc., if you want to be absolutely "correct" in your deportment, the wise thing to do is check beforehand with the clergyperson. For questions regarding the rites and sacraments of the Catholic Church, consult the chancery of the local Catholic diocese or archdiocese and someone can provide the correct information.

DEAR ABBY: A couple of months ago, I got a call from an ex-boyfriend's attorney informing me that he had passed away. He said that I'd been left something in "Luke's" will, and told me the date, time and place of the reading. A close friend and I attended.

I was flabbergasted to learn that Luke had left me a ring that had been in his family for years. At the reading, I also found out that he had married and had two sons and a daughter.

My problem: Luke and I dated back when I was 18 and very immature. (I am now 32.) I knew at the time that Luke was head over heels about me, but I was not at all serious about him -- and I let him know it from the beginning. Our relationship ended badly.

I don't believe I deserve this ring. I talked it over with a couple of friends. One says I should keep it because Luke wanted me to have it. Another thinks it would be a good idea to give it to his wife. But she was extremely offended that he left me the ring in the first place. What do you think about this, Abby? And if I do decide to give her the ring, what is the most considerate way to do it? -- UNDESERVING IN ARKANSAS

DEAR UNDESERVING: It would be interesting to know what was going on in your ex-boyfriend's mind when he decided that the ring should go to you. It appears that you always had a piece of his heart that he was never able to reclaim.

Because the item inspires guilt in you instead of pleasure, it might be better if it remains in Luke's family. Feeling as she does about the situation, his wife may not want the ring for herself. However, it would be gracious to offer it back, explaining that because it's a family heirloom, his daughter might like to have it when she's grown.

Abby shares more than 100 of her favorite recipes in two booklets: "Abby's Favorite Recipes" and "More Favorite Recipes by Dear Abby." Send a business-size, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $12 (U.S. funds)

to: Dear Abby -- Cookbooklet Set, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Postage is included in price.)