Living on

I took this picture a couple of months after we found out that two of these children were very likely, sooner or later, to lose their mother. It's been almost three years since, which in the timeline of this particular cancer is much later, a fact to be celebrated, even as we receive the news that the mother's time may be nearly up. All of these children now know their parents much better than they did at that moment, and all of them are now old enough to preserve those memories throughout their lives. In the face of a grim prognosis this mother has gone to extraordinary lengths to buy that time for her children. She may soon go, but she surely will not be forgotten by those who most need to carry her memory with them: whatever the outcome, she has successfully cheated the disease of a great part of the harm it could have done her family.

The picture tells another story, too, the title and body of which is simply "community." Our community has shared these trials, and that has helped these children cope, I think. We will continue to do so, come what may, with scooter rides and ice cream and all the life and energy that those of us who are spared have and now appreciate all the more. Our thanks, our admiration, our love forever.