Goodbye, Auntie Susie.
Sail in peace, Auntie Susie. (Second from left. Sandy, left. Marian, second from right. Me, right.) Just now I learned of the passing of someone very special—someone I've barely seen for the last forty years or so, but yet whose presence put a huge deposit in my memory bank. It's funny, these people who are part of your childhood; they stick with you forever, no matter how seldom you see them. There is no question that she held me in her arms and gave me a bottle when I was just days old; I don't need to fact check that. We moved away two years later, so all I remember of her is a lifelong series of special visits: her easy laugh and her full attention when we arrived at her home in salty Marblehead after a long drive from Plymouth for day trips that would occur several times a year for many years afterward. Meeting her to browse the newly opened shops at Quincy Market in Boston with my mom, my sister, and her daughter Sandy. Her sitting at our kitchen table in Plymouth, d
