This is all I have.

My Aunt Judy, my mother's younger sister, died earlier this week.

Her funeral is this morning, in New Jersey. I am in Washington. Time and available energy conspired against me, and discussion with family members made it obvious that flying 6 hours, then driving 2, and then turning around and doing it again twelve hours later back to the West Coast wasn't a logical thing to do. So I am 2500 miles away, saying my goodbyes.

If matter cannot be lost, only transformed, then nothing that matters can ever be lost, only transformed. What do we then become?

News of Judy's death came the morning I handed my current novel back to my editor. This is relevant. Judy and her husband were long-time fans, members of NESFA from its early years, and when my parents were bemused by their youngest child's fascination with this "sci-fi stuff," they stepped in, taking a then eleven-years-old me to my very first SF convention, and turning me loose for the weekend.

My life changed.

If you're here, reading this, because you read my work, Judy is part of the reason why that work exists.

When I speak of my mother's family, certain characteristics always come to the fore. Determined, certainly. Smart. Witty (some might even say wiseass). Loving. But Judy added another to the list: gentle. In a family of strong-minded individuals (that is to say: stubborn and opinionated), dealing with us couldn't have been easy. But she did her damnedest, and even when illness began to consume her mind, and her life, that gentleness remained.

And that is what I will remember.


What do we become, when we transform? I think, maybe, we become what others remember.