Memory

I have lost two dear, dear people this week, people I loved vigorously, people who made me feel loved, and special. That such a one as myself was worth the attention of such experienced elders I took as the peak of complement and I spent much thought on how I could show them my gratitude, though I was mostly at a loss.


Olga Sylvester was my mother-in-law. She housed me in San Francisco and showed me around the town and fed me at the sacred Kam's Restaurant. Before I left she baked me a rum cake that I was to have all to myself on the road back to S. Carolina. I can remember that cake as well as any food I have had before and since. That, and also her regular reprimands for not visiting enough and the sense that she was sincere and that she loved me. I never really expected her to go. I didn't know the time was so close.
She moved to S. Carolina recently and spent her last days with Carla and family. She died peacefully.


Happy needs no family name. Happy is enough. She is the ground from which the Mauldin family has grown and flourished. One only need to know Logan or Tom, or Caroline to begin to understand the sort of influence Happy has had on those around her. Her spirit of love and generosity is absent in None of the Mauldins. After my dad passed, who was it who offered me room and board and perhaps the finest coffee the world has ever known, and will ever know!...??? Tom and Melanie. (Melanie was responsible for the coffee!) Every time I come home, who is it that begs me to come up to the mountains to spend time with him and his family: Tombo. Who gave me a free ski pass on a rich rich powder day in Vale, housed me and fed me, and tried to steal Widgeon because they loved him in even a brief time: Logan and Chris. I won't even start with Caroline and her magnificence. . .

These are magnificent people. And I say it is in no small part because they have spent all their lives living in the light and under the model of Happy.

For those who know, Happy is to the Mauldins and Blondell is to the 'Manning boys'.

These are women who you don't need eyes to see: they radiate love and peace all around them. You can feel them. Happy was a magical and wonderful woman whom I knew but briefly and sparingly. But I am glad.

She lived to a mighty old age. She died with the sight of her family--her loved ones-- in her eyes and the sounds of their hymns in her ears. For those lucky enough to know the Mauldins, you know that the sight of them is something to behold, and the voice of Caroline something to marvel at.
It was a fair death.