FWTB: Chapter 25: A Mother's Farewell
A Life in Full
After Dad died, Mom refused to let grief define her remaining years. At 82, she joined a Wayne State alumni group for a trip to Egypt, standing at the foot of the Great Pyramids with the same wonder I'd seen in her eyes as a child when she'd point out constellations in our backyard. The photograph she sent me showed her dwarfed by ancient stones, her smile radiant beneath a wide-brimmed hat, arms spread wide as if trying to embrace the world itself.
"Derrick, you should have seen the sunrise over the Nile," she told me during our weekly phone call, her voice animated in a way I hadn't heard since before Dad's stroke. She described the colors—"purple and gold like nothing I've ever seen"—with the enthusiasm of someone discovering beauty for the first time.
At 85, Mom had carved out a new rhythm for herself. Mornings began with coffee and the Detroit News, though she preferred waiting for Wednesdays when the Michigan Chronicle arrived, savoring the community news and perspectives that connected her to the world she'd always known. When she backed her blue Cadillac DeVille out of the driveway, she might scrape the chain link fence occasionally, but that never stopped her resolve to go where she needed to go. "Good morning Mr. Allen!" she would yell across the street when she saw her dear neighbor of 50 years tending to his yard, her voice carrying the warmth of decades of shared hellos.
Afternoons were for volunteer work at the Stork's Nest project, evenings for long phone conversations with Mrs. Elma Peddy and Mrs. Virginia Donaldson—friendships that had weathered decades, voices that still made her laugh.
When friends suggested she might be "too old" for international travel, she'd wave them off with characteristic determination. "I've got places to see and things to do," she'd say, already planning her next adventure.
The Call That Changed Everything
I was at my desk in San Mateo when the phone rang that January morning in 2009. Four airline tickets to Virginia sat beside my computer—Toni Townes-Whitley, my Princeton classmate, was hosting a party at her compound for Obama's inauguration. I was hoping to see Michelle and Barack there, to celebrate this historic moment with friends who had become part of history themselves.
"Derrick?" Mom's voice sounded different. Careful. Measured in a way that made my stomach tighten.
"Hi Mom, how are you?"
"Well, the lymph nodes in my armpit are swollen and I have been having trouble sleeping. I am getting a biopsy this week."
My hand tightened on the phone. Lymph nodes. Biopsy. These weren't words that belonged in conversations with my 85-year-old mother who still drove her blue Cadillac and yelled greetings to neighbors.
And as we held our collective breath, the news came back.
"I have non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The doctors recommend chemotherapy."
The words stopped time. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Cancer. Mom. The airline tickets on my desk suddenly looked like artifacts from someone else's life—promises of celebration that belonged to a world where my mother wasn't sick.
"What does that mean?" I managed to ask.
"We'll figure it out," she said, her voice steadying into the tone she'd used when I was sick as a child, as if she could will this away through sheer maternal determination.
History could wait. Detroit was calling me home again.
The First Battle
The doctors explained the treatment plan with the practiced efficiency of people who delivered this news regularly. CHOP chemotherapy, they called it—cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone. The names sounded like weapons because that's exactly what they were, chemical warfare against the cancer that had invaded my mother's body.
I flew to Detroit for her first treatment, determined to be there as she had been there for me through every childhood illness, every scraped knee, every fever that sent her to my bedside with cool washcloths and worried eyes.
She was admitted to the hospital for the treatment. At her age, the doctor warned, the treatment could be difficult to tolerate. Nausea, fatigue, even loss of balance. Mom nodded as if she were receiving a weather report, her purse clutched in her lap as if it might anchor her to the world she knew.
"This will help you feel better," the nurse said as she inserted the IV, but I could see the doubt in Mom's eyes. She had already survived breast cancer years before, fought that battle with characteristic privacy and determination. But she was 85 now, and her body felt different, more fragile.
The chemicals dripped into her veins with mechanical precision. Within hours, the woman who had stood at the pyramids was reduced to someone I barely recognized. Her tiny frame was wracked with pain that seemed to emanate from her very bones. Lethargy pinned her to the bed like invisible weights. Her mouth became a battlefield of its own, the treatment attacking the cells that lined her throat, making it nearly impossible to eat or drink.
"Derrick, bring me the magic mouthwash," she whispered, her voice barely audible. The thick, medicinal liquid was supposed to soothe the burning, but nothing seemed to touch the deeper agony.
When I offered her the water glass, she pushed it away with a trembling hand.
"I'm not doing that again."
Difficult Choices
In the weeks that followed, Mom slowly emerged from the worst of the treatment's effects. Her appetite returned in small increments—first sips of broth, then crackers, finally real meals that she could taste again. But something fundamental had shifted. The woman who had backed her blue Cadillac out of the driveway with such determination now moved more carefully, as if her body had become unfamiliar territory.
When she felt strong enough to travel, I brought her to California for a visit. Watching her in our San Mateo home, surrounded by the life Gina and I had built, I saw how small she looked in our guest room, how she seemed to be measuring herself against the distance from everything familiar.
"Mom," I said one afternoon as we sat in the garden, "I've been thinking. What if you moved out here? I could take care of you properly, make sure you get the best treatment."
She was quiet for a long time, her hands folded in her lap, eyes fixed on something beyond our fence. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the weight of a decision already made.
"Detroit is my home, Derrick. That house on Shields Street—that's where your father and I built our life together. That's where you grew up. That's where I belong."
I wanted to argue, to list all the practical reasons why California made sense—better doctors, my proximity, the mild weather that might be easier on her aging body. But looking at her face, I understood. The house wasn't just where she lived; it was the repository of fifty years of memories, the place where she had been wife, mother, neighbor. If she couldn't have her health, at least she could have the comfort of familiar surroundings.
"I understand," I said, though part of me wanted to keep pushing. "But you'll need help."
She nodded, that stubborn set to her jaw softening slightly. "We'll figure it out."
The Search for Help
Back in Detroit, the reality of Mom's situation became starkly clear. I placed an ad in the paper and simultaneously asked Mom to ask her friends for referrals. One referral seemed perfect, but she wasn't available to start for a couple of months. When I got a response from a home health aide who could start immediately for just over half the cost of the first one, I jumped at it.
Sheila was tall and strong at 5'10", with steady brown eyes and a capable frame that suggested she could handle the physical demands of caregiving. Her resume listed years of experience with elderly clients, and when she spoke about her teenage son, I heard something I recognized—the weight of responsibility, the drive to provide.
"I understand what Mrs. Burns needs," Sheila said during our interview, her voice calm and assured. "Dignity. Respect. Someone who sees her as a person, not just a patient."
But convincing Mom to accept help was another challenge entirely.
"I don't need help yet, Derrick," Mom said, that familiar edge of stubbornness in her voice.
"I can cook and clean for myself," she added.
"I know you can, Mom. I just want to make sure that if you do need help, someone is there for you. Do this for me," I implored.
Mom grudgingly accepted the help. Just a couple of hours a day. But those hours gave me comfort. I had a person I could call who was placing eyes on my mom, who could tell me how she was really doing. It wasn't the work that I valued, it was the presence.
But as Mom's condition worsened, the complexity of her care increased. Three months after her initial diagnosis, we sought a second opinion from an oncologist recommended by one of Mom's friends. His clinic was modest—just an outer office with a receptionist and an inner office lined with white cabinets that perhaps contained the drugs that might save her.
Harsh Realities
We sat in the oncologist's inner office, Mom in the patient chair, me beside her taking notes I hoped I'd never need to reference. The doctor reviewed her chart with the methodical attention of someone who had delivered this kind of news many times before.
"Tell me about the first treatment," he said, looking up from the papers.
I found myself speaking for Mom, describing the reaction she'd had to the chemotherapy—the dizziness that left her unsteady on her feet, the lethargy that kept her in bed for days, the way her mouth felt like it was on fire, making it impossible to eat or drink anything without pain.
"She couldn't keep anything down," I explained, watching Mom nod in agreement. "The nausea was constant."
The doctor listened, occasionally making notes. When I finished, he set down his pen and looked directly at Mom.
"Mrs. Burns," he said, his voice matter-of-fact in a way that somehow made his words more ominous, "I can cure any cancer. The question is, can you survive the treatment?"
The words hung in the air between us like a diagnosis of their own. I felt something cold settle in my chest as I watched Mom absorb what he'd just said. This wasn't about hope versus despair—this was about mathematics. Her body versus the poison that might save it.
"What are you saying?" I asked, though I was afraid I already knew.
He explained that removing her cold turkey from steroids had been a mistake in the first treatment. He could modify the approach, he assured us, monitor her more closely, reduce the dosages of the harsh chemicals. But the fundamental equation remained unchanged: the cure might kill her faster than the disease.
Mom was quiet for a long moment, her hands folded in her lap. When she finally spoke, her voice was steady.
"I'll try it one more time."
The Final Treatment
The modified treatment plan was administered in the sparse clinic this time. Mom received the second chemotherapy session in that simple office with its white cabinets and minimal equipment. When she left, I felt a surge of hope—she was walking on her own accord, her gait steady, looking more like the woman who had yelled greetings to Mr. Allen.
But days later, the symptoms returned. Not as severe as before, but present nevertheless. The nausea crept back, the fatigue settled into her bones, and the mouth sores made eating a careful negotiation between hunger and pain.
After a few sessions, Mom made a decision that shouldn't have surprised me but somehow did.
"I'm stopping," she told me during one of our phone calls. Her voice was tired but resolute, carrying the tone she'd used when I was a child and she'd made up her mind about something—final, non-negotiable.
I didn't ask if she was sure. She had already tried twice, had already given the treatment every chance she could. This wasn't my decision to question or make more difficult.
"I understand, Mom," I said.
"I'd rather have fewer good days than more bad ones," she explained, her voice carrying the same practical wisdom she'd applied to every major decision in her life.
In that moment, I heard an echo of the woman who had refused to let Dad languish in a nursing home, who had transformed their den into a place of dignity and care. She knew what she wanted, and what she wanted was to live—really live—for whatever time remained.
Fading Memories
During my increasingly frequent visits to Detroit, I began to notice changes in Mom that were harder to dismiss than physical frailty. She would ask me the same question three times in an hour, each time with the genuine curiosity of someone hearing my answer for the first time.
It was simple conversation on the phone that revealed the changes most clearly. She would talk about her day—what she'd had for breakfast, a conversation with Mrs. Peddy, something she'd seen on the news—then twenty minutes later, repeat it all again, word for word, as if sharing it for the first time.
She began complaining about misplacing things. Keys that she was certain she'd left on the kitchen counter. Her reading glasses that had somehow moved from the coffee table. Most troubling, she started hiding her precious jewelry and what little cash she kept in the house, then forgetting where she'd put them.
"Derrick, I can't find the Tiffany necklace you got me," she'd tell me, worry evident in her voice. "I know I put it somewhere safe."
The woman who had managed Dad's complex medical needs with military precision, who kept copious notes on everything from doctor appointments to household expenses, was becoming untethered from the moorings of memory that had always anchored her.
I took her to Henry Ford Hospital for an evaluation, sitting beside her as doctors administered tests with names I'd never heard before. The analysis confirmed what I had feared but couldn't bring myself to name—significant memory loss and cognitive decline.
"It could be 'chemo-brain,'" the doctor explained, using a term that sounded almost casual for something so devastating. "Memory failure induced by the chemotherapy treatments."
Whatever the cause, the implications were clear: Mom's judgment was becoming less reliable. The independence she had fought so hard to maintain was slipping away, piece by piece, memory by memory.
Escalating Needs
Faced with Mom's declining memory and judgment, I increased Sheila's hours, ensuring Mom had supervision throughout the day. The woman who had once managed every detail of our household now needed someone to remind her to take her medications, to help her find things she'd hidden and forgotten.
At the airport, preparing for yet another delayed return to California, I found myself making two phone calls that had become routine—once to check on Mom, once to apologize to Gina for another postponed homecoming. The balance between caring for my mother from across the country and maintaining my own family felt increasingly impossible to sustain.
By spring, our fragile equilibrium was shattered again. During a routine examination, Mom's doctor found something that made my blood run cold—a recurrence of breast cancer. The cancer hadn't metastasized, but it was there nonetheless, and she elected to have a mastectomy.
The surgery itself was successful. I remember visiting her in the hospital afterward, watching her walk down the hallway with the temporary buoyancy that steroids can provide. She was smiling, chatting with nurses as if nothing fundamental had changed, her spirit temporarily lifted above the reality of what her body was enduring.
But as the steroids were gradually reduced, so was Mom's energy. The brief spark I'd seen in the hospital corridor dimmed, and her recovery stalled in ways that had nothing to do with surgical healing. Her body seemed to be reaching its limit for fighting battles, and we faced another agonizing decision.
The doctors recommended transferring her to a rehabilitation facility to help her regain strength. I spoke with friends of Mom's, seeking their advice. They recommended a particular rehab facility, assuring me that it was much better than Bortz, that Mom would be well cared for. The doctors said it was only for a couple of weeks. Mom could return home.
But even with these reassurances, the reality proved different from the promise.
The Call Home
Two weeks into her stay, Sheila called me with alarm in her voice that I'd never heard before.
"Your mother looks terrible," she said, her words tight with concern. "This place is killing her."
My stomach dropped. I had trusted the recommendations, believed the assurances that this facility would be different from Bortz. But Sheila's voice carried the urgency of someone who had seen Mom at her best and was now witnessing something frightening.
"What do you mean?" I asked, though I was already reaching for my laptop to book a flight.
"She's not eating. She barely responds when I talk to her. The staff..." Sheila paused, choosing her words carefully. "They're not taking care of her the way she needs."
I could hear the weight of what she wasn't saying—that despite all my research and the promises from Mom's friends, this place was failing her just as surely as Bortz had failed Dad.
"Get her home immediately," I said, my fingers already pulling up airline websites. "I'm coming."
When I arrived in Detroit and saw Mom, Sheila's alarm made perfect sense. The woman who had walked hospital corridors with steroid-induced energy just weeks before looked diminished in ways that went beyond physical healing. There was something in her eyes—a dimming that spoke of neglect, of being forgotten in a place where care was supposed to happen.
That night, sitting beside her bed in the house on Shields Street, I made a promise that felt as sacred as any vow I'd ever spoken:
"I will never send you to a place like that again. You are home now, and home is where you'll stay."
The Final Months
I extended my visits from one week to three, spending precious time with Mom in what we both understood were her final months. The house on Shields Street became the place where we could simply be together, away from the clinical efficiency of hospitals and the institutional neglect of care facilities.
Sheila and I established a routine that gave each other breaks from the constant vigilance that caregiving required. During my shifts, I would keep simple meals for Mom whenever I could get her to eat. Her appetite was barely enough to feed her tiny body that competed with the cancer cells for nourishment.
"Mom, I am making you some oatmeal with some bananas," I'd announce. Then I would bring it to her bedroom on a wooden tray with legs for her to place over her lap.
We revisited her wonderful life through stories and old photo albums. Her fingers would trace the faces of people long gone—her parents, Dad in his younger days, me as a gap-toothed child grinning in our backyard. Sometimes the memories came easily; other times I would gently fill in the gaps, helping her navigate the spaces where her mind could no longer reach.
"How is Mrs. Donaldson? Mrs. Peddy?" I'd ask, hoping to spark joy at the mention of her dear friends.
Other times we simply sat in comfortable silence, the weight of our shared history filling the space between us. The afternoon light would filter through the curtains she had hung decades ago, casting familiar patterns on furniture that had witnessed our entire family's story.
But each day, her hands grew thinner. The lymphoma had metastasized, spreading through her body with the same relentless determination she had once brought to caring for Dad. Sheila and I began speaking in hushed tones when Mom napped, our conversations full of careful euphemisms that couldn't quite mask the reality we were all facing.
One night, as I lay next to Mom in her bed, the room filled with the familiar scents of home—lavender lotion and the faint mustiness of old wood—she turned to me with an urgent need. Too weak to make it to the bathroom, she needed to defecate.
I helped her to the portable folding commode we had placed next to her bed, supporting her frail frame as she lowered herself onto the seat. Her body felt impossibly light, as if the cancer had hollowed her out from within. When she was finished, I wiped her clean with the same gentle care she had once shown me as a child.
She accepted the indignity with quiet resignation, her eyes avoiding mine not from embarrassment but from the exhaustion that came with needing help for the most basic human functions. There was no shame in this moment—only love expressed through the most fundamental act of caregiving.
This was the circle of life made manifest. She had done the same for me when I was small and helpless. I had done the same for my own children during their countless diaper changes and potty training accidents. Now I was doing it for my mother, the woman who had taught me that love sometimes meant doing the things that were difficult, unglamorous, necessary.
As I cleaned the commode and helped her back to bed, I felt the weight of what we were sharing—not just this moment of physical care, but the profound trust she was placing in me. In her vulnerability, she was teaching me one final lesson about what it meant to love someone completely.
The Last Goodbye
I returned to California to attend to my family, carrying with me the certainty that our time together was almost over. The flight home felt different this time—not the usual relief of returning to my own life, but the heavy knowledge that I was leaving Mom to face her final battle without me physically present.
When I called her now, the transformation in her voice was unmistakable. The energy and strength that had always characterized her—what I had come to think of as "the general" in her—was gone, replaced by an acquiescence, an acceptance that her time was ending.
"Hi Derrick," she would answer the phone, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Hi Mom, how are you feeling today?" I would ask, injecting as much cheerfulness as I could muster.
"Ok," she would say, the single word trailing off into silence that spoke volumes about her diminishing strength.
These conversations became a ritual of careful optimism on my part and gentle resignation on hers. I would tell her about Maya and Jamil, about work, about the weather in California—anything to keep her tethered to the world of the living. She would listen, sometimes responding with a soft "mm-hmm" or "that's nice, honey," but I could feel her drifting further away with each call.
The woman who had once commanded household schedules and family dynamics with military precision now struggled to hold onto the thread of our conversations. Yet in her weakness, there was a kind of grace—an acceptance of what was coming that I wasn't sure I possessed.
A week later, Sheila called.
"Mrs. Burns is gone," she said simply.
The words hit me like cold water, though I had been preparing myself for them for weeks. Gone. The finality of that simple word seemed to echo in the silence that followed Sheila's announcement.
I stood in my California kitchen, the phone pressed to my ear, trying to process what she had just told me. Mom—who had yelled greetings to Mr. Allen across the street, who had stood at the pyramids with arms spread wide, who had fought so hard to bring Dad home and care for him with dignity—was no longer in the world.
"When?" I managed to ask.
"About an hour ago," Sheila said softly. "She went peacefully. In her sleep."
After I hung up, I sat down at my kitchen table and let the reality wash over me. I was an orphan now, at 46 years old. The last living witness to my childhood was gone. The woman whose strength and love had shaped everything I had become—her voice, her laugh, her fierce determination to live life on her own terms—existed now only in memory.
But more than personal loss, I felt something else: a profound gratitude for those final months we had shared. For the wooden tray meals and the gentle conversations about Mrs. Peddy and Mrs. Donaldson. For the trust she had placed in me when she needed help with the most intimate aspects of care. For the way she had taught me, even in her dying, what it meant to love someone completely.
Losing Mom was like losing a piece of myself—but it was also the completion of a circle that had begun when she first held me as an infant, teaching me that love sometimes meant doing the difficult, unglamorous, necessary things. Now I carried that lesson forward, along with all the others she had given me.
The Empty House
When it came time to bid her farewell in the hallowed halls of Metropolitan Baptist Church, the contrast with Dad's funeral eight years earlier was stark. About sixty people attended—a modest gathering that would have filled perhaps a quarter of the sanctuary. The church that had once been the vibrant center of our community now felt cavernous, its empty pews a testament to Detroit's continuing decline and the diaspora of its children.
Dr. Morton, who had presided over Dad's funeral with such dignity and grace, had himself passed away a year earlier, in November 2009. The congregation that had once numbered in the hundreds during my childhood had dwindled to fewer than a hundred faithful members, most of them aging alongside the city itself.
A younger minister led the service, reading from notes about a woman he had never really known. He spoke of Mom's dedication to the Stork's Nest project, her love for her family, her strength in caring for Dad during his final years. The words were kind and appropriate, but they felt like echoes in a space that had once resonated with the full-throated celebrations of a thriving community.
Mrs. Peddy and Mrs. Donaldson were there, both using walkers now, their faces etched with the grief of losing another member of their shrinking circle. A handful of Mom's former colleagues from the school system came to pay their respects. Sheila sat in the back, her presence a reminder of the final chapter of Mom's life.
As we gathered around the graveside, I thought of Aunt Mae and Uncle John, buried next to Mom and Dad, as Mom had planned. The four plots now filled with the bodies of those who loved me the most and who I loved with all my heart.
After the funeral, I returned to the house on Shields Street one last time before flying back to California. Walking through those familiar rooms, everything looked the same—the furniture in its appointed places, Mom's coffee cup still sitting by the sink, the Michigan Chronicle from the previous Wednesday folded neatly on the kitchen table. But nothing felt the same.
This house had been the center of my universe for the first eighteen years of my life. Every room held memories: learning to tie my shoes in the kitchen, doing homework at the dining room table, the countless conversations with Mom and Dad about everything from school to dreams to disappointments. Now it felt like a museum of a life that had ended.
With my own life firmly established in California and Detroit continuing its economic decline, the family home became a burden I couldn't manage from across the country. The house itself was in excellent condition—structurally sound, though perhaps showing its age in ways that reminded me of Mom herself in her final months. But maintaining it from 2,000 miles away felt impossible.
I considered whether my sister Jala might need a place to stay, but her life was in North Carolina now. I reached out to family for help. My cousin Nicole lived alone in her apartment, and I thought perhaps she might want to move into the house. She deliberated for a week before declining—she preferred the comfort and convenience of her apartment, which was better located for her needs.
The house remained empty, and I felt the weight of a decision I wasn't ready to make. This wasn't just a piece of real estate; it was the physical embodiment of everything my parents had built together, everything they had given me. How do you sell the place where your family's story began?
Desperate to keep the house from deteriorating while I wrestled with what to do, I offered to rent it to Sheila. The woman who had been Mom's caregiver, who had called me with alarm when the rehab facility was failing her, who had been present for Mom's final moments—surely she would treat the house and its contents with the respect they deserved. I thought she might appreciate having a stable place to live in exchange for modest rent and maintaining the property.
For a time, it seemed like the perfect solution. Sheila moved in, paid her rent, and kept me updated on the house's condition. I felt relief knowing that someone who had cared for Mom was now caring for the home where that care had taken place.
The following winter brought a betrayal that cut deeper than I could have imagined. Sheila stopped paying rent and began ignoring my calls. When she finally moved out several months later, I discovered she had taken Mom's belongings with her—not just small items, but furniture, jewelry, pieces of our family's history that could never be replaced.
I discovered the theft in the most jarring way possible: scrolling mindlessly through Facebook one evening, I stopped breathing. There were Mom's tables—the glass insets catching afternoon light, those carved white and gold legs I'd helped Dad move so many times during my childhood. They sat casually in someone else's living room now, background props in Sheila's apartment photos, as if they had always belonged to her.
Staring at that photo, rage settled like sediment in my chest. The Tiffany necklace I had bought for Mom years earlier—the one she couldn't find during her memory lapses—had likely been stolen by Sheila as well. Even more heartbreaking was the disappearance of my mother's sapphire ring, which she had promised to my daughter Maya. The woman I had trusted with my mother's final months had been systematically stealing not just possessions but family legacies intended for the next generation.
The betrayal by Sheila was just the beginning of the house's decline. I changed the locks and tried to secure the property from across the country, but Detroit's accelerating decay made vacant houses vulnerable targets. Despite my efforts to maintain it, squatters eventually broke in, turning the once-peaceful home into something I barely recognized.
They bypassed the DTE meter, stealing electricity while I continued to receive bills for a house I could no longer control. The small kitchen where Mom had prepared countless meals, where she had taught me life lessons over morning coffee and evening snacks, was damaged in a subsequent fire. The scent of smoke and neglect replaced the familiar aromas of home cooking and Pine-Sol that had defined that space for decades.
The house was uninsured—not by choice, but because Allstate had dropped coverage years earlier, even before Mom got sick, despite our family's faithful and timely insurance payments for over forty years. They had deemed Detroit properties too risky to insure, leaving us vulnerable at the very moment we needed protection most.
Faced with mounting costs for a property I couldn't secure, couldn't insure, and couldn't maintain from California, I made the wrenching decision to relinquish the house to the state for unpaid property taxes. It was the final severing of my ties to Michigan, the place where I had been born and raised, where my parents had lived and died.
When the notice arrived from the state acknowledging repossession of the home, I thought about Mom's hands on that front door key—fifty-one years of turning that same lock, of coming home to the place where she and Dad had built their life together. The house was gone, but I could still feel her teaching me to tie my shoes in that kitchen, still hear Dad's voice calling us to dinner from the living room.
Some things burn down. Others you carry with you forever.
Mom Visits Our San Mateo Home, March 2010
Jamil, Mom, Maya