In memoriam
My mother would have been 59 years old today.
When she was the age I am now, I think she'd already been diagnosed with leukemia, though she lived much longer than the doctors expected her to.
She died in a clinic (or perhaps a hospice? I'm not sure) on Orcas Island, in the San Juan Islands, between Bellingham, WA, and Victoria, BC. Various members of my family and I took the ferry over there once, a few years ago, and drove around the island for a while. Stood on a lookout point somewhere on the island and looked out over the mist and the water.
The subject of elephants came up the other day in some context or other, and reminded me that Marcy always told us that she wanted to be an elephant when she grew up. I don't believe in reincarnation—but if it does happen, I hope she got to be an elephant.
I still miss her. Not all the time, but now and then. When I think of her.