IN THE EARLY 1920s, my uncle David drove a car across the Sahara Desert. But that was before I was born. My aunt Eva was a beautician in Bond Street in London. She used to boast that she had slapped the Duchess of Gloucester`s face.

Family stories flew around and I believed them all, or at least most of them. I wondered how they could be true, but did not dare question my elders. I tried to imagine uncle David in the dunes near our house and doubted that a car could traverse the slippery, shifty sand. Everybody knew that you took one footstep forward and two back on the windblown sands that towered at the back of our beach. Mauve rocket flowers grew in that waterless wilderness, and sea-holly and blue-green marram grass but I never saw any vehicle except a horse and cart being filled with seaweed or dry sand.

Mother said that Santa Claus came down the chimney on Christmas Eve, but all the pictures showed him jolly fat. All the bedrooms in our house had tiny, black, wrought-iron fireplaces, embossed with art deco wavy stems, peaked with stylised flowers. I wondered how could he get down my chimney, and even if he could, I would surely have heard him.

Aunt Eva eventually gave up her beauty career to marry her dental surgeon fiancé. They came to our house for their honeymoon. (It was the first time I knew anything about how babies were started. They put their lips together and wriggled). Aunt Eva`s hats were amazing; they were very close to her head, just like my rubber bathing cap, only made of wool or something, with flat ribbons. Her skirts were short and she had very curvy legs; I often saw uncle Ray smoothing her legs. I didn`t ask what he was doing, but when he saw that I was looking he explained that he was making sure that my aunt`s stockings were straight.

And then there was my aunt Stella. I did not know her at all. She never used to come to Cornwall, but I knew about her marrying uncle Terry. Some time later, I heard the whispers; something called d-i-v-o-r-c-e. (I thought it must be an illness). Aunt Stella and aunt Eva had been educated in France, at a Convent they said, with nuns for teachers. I thought nuns lived in nunneries and were extra holy. So were my aunts blessed people?

Father was a pianist and mother played the viola. They provided the music for afternoon tea dances in The Moravia Hotel in our seaside town. I was not aware that father played in a jazz band in the evenings, but Daddy did yawn a lot during the day. Mother liked to wear velvet. For the tea dances she wore a brown velvet frock and she made Daddy wear a brown velvet jacket. Velvet is very smooth. I liked it better than satin; satin made my teeth grate, but velvet was a bit like a tennis ball, all short, furry and soft.

On Monday afternoon, the one afternoon of the week when the there was no tea dance, I attended a dancing class, in the hotel ballroom. My preliminary remembrance was of a gloomy, hollow place with a black floor. Actually, it was quite a large room with big bay windows and an oak panelling dado on the lower walls. Ranged around the walls were stylish gold painted chairs. Curtains and drapes were omitted because, so they said, of the akoo-sticks. I couldn`t see where the sticks came in. On Monday mornings the cleaners polished the wood floor with lavender scented wax and when the children gathered, the room seemed to warm up and become light brown and pungent with scent of lavender. And the music made a difference too; Suppe`s Poet and Peasant, Litolff`s Spinning Song and Liebestraume or Love Dreams by Franz Liszt. Mother would accompany us on her viola.

I was accustomed to music in my home. We had a gramophone with lots of records, all classical works, but they were treated lightly and often my mother would put words to the familiar melodies. For example; to number seven of Dvorak`s eight Humoresques she would sing: "ladies-will-you-please-refrain\from-passing water-on- the-train\especially-when-it`s-standing-in-the-sta-tion." I wondered about the passing water for a long time.

In the summer when I was nearly eight, the Grand Gorsedd was held in the town. Cornish Bards were created for their contribution to poetry and things and The Grand Bard would initiate the new Bards at the ceremony on the Castle Lawn. An older girl, dressed in a white Grecian gown was to carry a bunch of corn and poppies to present to the Gorsedd Harpist. I was thrilled to be chosen to dance and the organisers sent a roll of dark green cotton fabric to be made into short tunics and knickers. In our hair we would have fresh flowers. About ten of us, in all, must hold onto a long rope of greenery that we would finally ceremoniously drape on the platform. Then the outgoing Grand Bard would crown the new one for that year.

The music for the Gorsedd was, of course, composed by one of the Bards, played by the Official Gorsedd Harpist. But for several Monday afternoon practices, in the absence of a harp, mother had to pluck the viola. It sounded awful but our rehearsals seemed to be going well, nevertheless.

The dress rehearsal pleased our dance teacher. As she taught us, we each pointed our big toe to the ground as we skipped, holding the rope with one hand and flapping our other hand to the beat of the tune.

Suddenly, the door opened and there was my aunt Stella.

`No, mes enfants!` she cried, striking a ballet pose. Her skirt was made of large white lawn handkerchiefs sewn to her waistband, points to the floor and her bodice was daringly low-cut. Her black hair was coiled in plaits around her ears, in a style that was called "earphones" in deference to the things worn when listening to the wireless set. Her eyes were very dark brown, like my father`s, and her gaze rested on each one of us in turn.

The vision of my aunt caused a whispered hush. I heard mother sigh. The dance teacher shrank into a corner. We children waited for what might happen next. I wondered who mes enfants were, it could not be us, we were not French. I knew French, of course, because of "Apres-midi d`un faune" by Debussy.

`Pirouette!` sang aunt Stella, performing a perfect twirl on one foot, showing silk stockings and white bar-shoes.

In no time she had us all extending arms and fingers above our heads in an oval shape. She taught us how to sashay, that is strut or walk with a swagger, as does a ballet dancer. Skipping and hopping was definitely out.

`One and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four`she sang. We found it quite easy, except when my poor mother was prevailed upon to play the music. The viola pizzicato was nothing like the sweeping chords of the harp but we did not know that. My aunt Stella complained; Mother objected and she and I went home. I think everyone went home, it was a disaster.

Saturday arrived. The afternoon was fine. Aunt Stella had taken over totally and the dance teacher was under her spell. Mother, relieved of the burden of providing the music, helped to organise the children. She pinned the flowers in our hair, took charge of our sandals and cardigans and lined us up one behind the other along the line of greenery. The big girl had been having special lessons for her performance. pShe looked very grown-up and confident, while we shivered with expectation.

First the Bards processed from the railway station, up onto the Castle Green. Our little routine was after the Bards had gathered in a big circle and the Grand Bard had ascended the steps to his throne on the dais. The Harpist separated herself from the circle and settled behind her instrument and began to play. We children were behind the bandstand, waiting for our signal.

At last the Harpist began our tune. We looked at each other aghast. This did not sound a bit like our music! But aunt Stella appeared on the bandstand. All eyes turned towards her standing triumphant in a flowing golden gown. She sang words to our tune, not in English, not in French but in the Cornish language!

Our dancing classes were never the same after that. My aunt Stella went back to Park Lane, to her esteemed school of dancing, next to the Dorchester Hotel. Our teacher went there to take a short course of ballet and returned a woman transformed. No longer did my mother play the viola, father played ballet music on the piano. Mother had become very fat; because of eating too many chocolates, I supposed.

At Christmas, we put on a display. We all wore ballet shoes now but only the big girls went up on the points of their toes. I remember the day of the display. I went with father to the ballroom before anyone else arrived. We were doing "Le Casse-noisette", a story about a nutcracker that came to life and his fight with the Mouse King. I was one of the mice. I had a tail and my face was painted with whiskers. We danced with our hands curled in front of our chests.

Father opened the piano and did a few arpeggios. Then he strolled over to the mantelpiece where little bowls of chocolates were ready for the guests after the show. He pinched one. Suddenly there was a whirlwind and my aunt Stella was there, smacking my father`s wrists. It was great. I had never seen my father scolded before.

`What on earth are you doing here?` Daddy asked his sister.

`To see the display of course` she looked at me and smiled.

I could see that father was worried. If my aunt took over the whole thing it would embarrass everybody. It was then that our teacher arrived. I told you, she was a transformed woman didn`t I? We had to call her `Madame` although I knew she was still a mademoiselle.

`Ah you are here, Stella` she said, `good. I have put you in the front row.`

I looked at the gold painted chairs set in rows at the other end of the ballroom. In the front, in the centre, was what might be called a throne, a carving chair with arms, with red velvet cushions on it.

`But I must be in the wings! To make sure everything goes well. ` My aunt`s velvet brown eyes were flashing and she was waving her beautiful silk fringed shawl around her shoulders.

Then the guests began to arrive and she was surrounded by people welcoming her and smiling. And she sat herself elegantly on her special chair. Madame caught hold of my arm and took me into the annexe where every one in the show was congregating. She was very kind, more attentive than usual and I wondered why. But I had no more time to think, the ballet was beginning.

All went well, thank goodness. My aunt Stella wriggled a few times and put forward a graceful hand once or twice, as if to dispute. I noticed it when we mice were lined up and staying very still, waiting our turn to dance. Father played the piano with special perseverance I thought. He stared into space and his hands moved over the keys automatically.

It was not until everyone had gone home that they told me that I had a baby brother.

Today, I reached a milestone in my life. No, it isn't the so called big five-o. Not yet, anyway. My aunt - my late mother's older, and only, sister last night slipped from this life into whatever waits beyond.

When I was growing up, Auntie always seemed to be around with quiet words of wisdom and gentle encouragement. Like most of us, I suppose, I took my troubles and concerns to the elder statespersons within the family, and, for the most part, they would rise to the occasion out of the wisdom born of their experience, and dish out good advice - which I sometimes even took!

Probably, given that I am the youngest offspring of two youngest children, it was inevitable that my late arrival would mean that three of my grandparents would have already made their final departure before I was born. The fourth, my mother's father, was the light of my young life; all too soon the brief, bright candle of his life sputtered and flickered out.

My mother's grief at the time was too deep for her otherwise tender heart to relate to another's pain, yet, between them, she and my Aunt held me together, and made sense of the loss. In my bewilderment at this extremely unwelcome change, I clung to my remaining family, and found a measure of peace.

My father had several brothers and sisters, and they too provided anchors for a somewhat wild ( I always preferred to be called free-spirited) child. However, over the years, they too have slipped from my protesting grasp, one by inevitable one. The last of them, including Dad, said their goodbyes over twenty years ago, and their going wrenched my heart.

But there was always the seemingly inseparable duo of my Mother and her sister. I relied on them more than I knew.

Auntie would rush in and out of my life on an exotic tidal wave. She travelled to far-away places with strange sounding names - and brought back souvenirs and stories that fired a youthful imagination with dreams. No matter how far and wide she went, she was always there when the big events occurred, and that is something that I can only look back on now with wonder. How could she manage to always be in the right place at the right time? But the fact is that she was.

When my mother died, Auntie was my solace (and my little granddaughter, albeit all-unwittingly). It was hard for me to see her tears, drowning as I was in a sea of my own. It was her hand that held mine, and there was no need for words to pass between us.

Now she is gone, the last of the older generation of my family, the last refuge from the storm laid bare. And, as I look down at my fingers flying over the keys, realisation dawns that I, together with my brother and sister, am now the oldest generation of my family. It feels strange.

How will I cope, now that I am the one who will be expected to dispense wise advice? I don't feel like a fountainhead of wisdom. In fact, not only do I not have all the answers, I strongly suspect that, most of the time, the meaning of the question eludes me. In that, I probably don't feel any different to those who have trodden this path before me.

Somewhere in the depths of my mind , I can see my Aunt, smiling and nodding. All my aunts and uncles, great aunts, parents and grandfather seem to be there too, the serried ranks of shadows behind them the blurred and unknown faces of my forbears.

Michael Patterson was thirty-four years old. He did voluntary work at Gallaghers' bookstore in The Diamond. Halloween had just ended and already the toy stores and party shops were displaying Christmas stock and decorations. Each day held promise for him. In return for work he got out of pocket expenses and access to many of the classic books. Recently released political prisoners knew how important it was to keep an active and alert mind, so Michael stacked shelves, ran errands and wrote up all the orders for his middle-aged employers.

They were good to him. Davy would take him fishing at the weekends and his wife, Janice, would buy him lunch each day. She would also buy him a book of his choice at the end of every week. At first, he chose books about Crossmaglen or the Shankhill Butchers. He was nervous about his selections. Janice gently coaxed him, recommending one of hers or Davy's favourites. Both of them had been political activists during the 1970's and early 80's, but never talked in detail about it. All they discussed were their worries for the young, the pain of the last thirty years in conflict, or books and films on spirituality. Their fight was over. Michael's battles were changing.

Most evenings he ate in restaurants but when he cooked at home he made simple meals with chicken, vegetables, and whole grain rice. He would shower then go to his room, open up the white-framed windows and look at the people down below on Pump Street. He spent hours doing this. At other times he would sit in a cushioned chair at the end of his bed reading with the radio on quietly in the background. There were stacks of books between the fireplace and the wardrobe, which included Crime and Punishment and One Day in the Life of Ivan Davidovich. He loved when he read about something and it connected with his own way of thinking. He enjoyed books about incarceration or release and was half way through, Hero of the Underworld by Jimmy Boyle, a Scottish writer. Each book seemed to set him free from his violent past. Every word was like sunlight peeping in through softly, blown net curtains on a warm and lazy day. At times, it felt as though he was waking from a bad dream, coming round to regain balance with the outside world. Reading and learning about the changes that had happened while he was inside filled him with hope and wonder.

That afternoon they had been fishing for trout at The Midges between Buncrana and Clonmany. They caught nothing but both swore they were getting nibbles. Davy used different kinds of bait. First, worms then brown bread mixed with fish oil, then sweet corn. After roughly three hours he switched to spinners and lures. Michael watched all this with a peaceful smile on his face, content simply breathing in the moss-scented air. They had been coming up here for seven months and he was the only one to catch anything. A half-pound rainbow trout back in the summer. He savoured the memory of letting it go, watching it idle near the bank, then with a sudden flip of a silvery tail fin how it cut the surface of the lake and disappeared. Davy called it beginners luck.

On the journey home, rain bounced off the green and rusty bonnet of the car as Davy ranted and raved about graffiti and the on-going drug and gang problems affecting the city. There were police checkpoints on The Strand Road. Another bomb scare on the Craigavon Bridge. Sometime during the day, someone had sprayed "Up The Hoods! 2002!" on the War Memorial.

I don't know why the hell you did not keep your head down like I told you. One would think that even a troglodyte like you would have understood. I have preached until I was blue in the face, and to what avail, I ask you? Is it because you think I am stupid and that I don't know what I am talking about? The truth is boy I do not care a dam about you as an individual. In this game it has to be number one, but number one depends on team work and mutual trust. That is what it is all about. The one lesson you could not understand. You are not infallible, nor are you so damned clever that you can afford to be so dismissive about virtually everything you're told. You sat and looked at me and no doubt thought there he goes again - knows it all. I never understood selfless coon loving liberals like you, and especially when they double up as religious maniacs when it suits them. In my experience, but I doubt if you are interested, the really clever ones are the ones who temper their mediocracy with liberal doses of genuine fear. I understand that type. They are predictable so that people like me can take action to compensate for their inexperience. Have you ever considered there is nothing new in this god-damned world? What we experience today is something millions before us have experienced in one form or another. Our response should take into account their mistakes and successes and act on it. That is the lesson; ignore it at your peril.

Jesus wept! What a disaster you have turned out to be. I am the one who has to write to your mother, to tell her how we all admired you as a soldier and colleague. I can hardly tell her the truth can I?

God only knows we all have weaknesses. Mine, boy as I told you, is writing to the deceased next of kin and the other is tobacco - you know about that. I'll smoke this fag in your memory. After dark I'll have to shove you in the nearest shell hole. This fox hole is too small for for the both of us.

Why the hell didn't you listen to me?

Leave nothing standing. If it moves shoot it, if it doesn’t, burn it. Clear the whole area. Those were the orders. In compliance with those orders the area was cleared. I have long forgotten the main thrust of the assault the incident has long been relegated to the non - events of military history. We encountered very little resistance as we swept into the town itself. Small pockets of half-hearted opposition in the narrow streets melted away under the withering power of our attack. We were determined once and for all to eradicate the irritation caused by a handful of belligerent if not very effective enemy. The heat of the morning was unbearable. The temperature was already well over the hundred mark and rising. The assault had been timed to start at the hottest hour when, it was thought, the opposition would be less coordinated. For once military intelligence had summed up the situation correctly. The dust thrown up by our mortars clung to our profusely sweating bodies, drying into a thin reddish crust, as we advanced. The mood became vicious. My poignant recollection of the assault is an encapsulated period of maybe thirty seconds, thirty seconds that haunt me.

I was approaching a street of poor mud dwellings when someone fired. A bullet splattered into the mud wall above my head sending large clumps of dried mud flying harmlessly in all directions. I ran, taking advantage of covering fire, to the house in which I thought my assailant was hiding. I kicked the door open, fired a short burst from my Sten gun, and entered. Behind me a noise, I sprang around ready to fire. There facing me was a small child crouching in terror, a girl I think, dirty and dishevelled, her dress torn and covered in blood. Her horror stricken face clearly mirrored my image as I stood there.

Christ! I thought, is that what I look like? I stared at the child not knowing what to do next. I remember I motioned her to lie quietly behind some old carpet-like wall covering. I placed my finger on my lips hoping it was understood as a sign for her to remain quiet. As I left the building, the sergeant major shouted, ‘Is this house cleared?'

‘Yes Sir, ' I replied, and followed him running to the next objective. We were about twenty yards away when the house, I had just left, was destroyed by a mortar bomb. We were both thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion. The sergeant major smiled at me – that was unnerving in itself. That evening I got drunk, it was my eighteenth birthday.

We always had ice cream when we were together, served in Royal Doulton dishes with faded gold trim. Her favorite was peppermint, and she had some almost every day, but as a tiny woman she indulged her sweet tooth only one scoop at a time.

I had established a tradition of visiting twice a year, flying down for Mother’s Day in May and again for her birthday in October. Well, that was how it happened to work out, but the timing was driven by the season - in spring, after the snowbirds left but before the weather turned too hot for my northern blood to stand, and in fall, before the snowbirds returned. She hated the mass influx of those northerners who couldn’t bear their northern winters, and although she herself had moved from Pittsburgh when she retired, she’d outlasted the statute of limitations by staying on through the oppressive summer heat for nearly twenty years.

In Pittsburgh, she had worked for Mellon Bank and lived as the middle of a three-generation home: her mother, herself, her daughter, three women spanning half a century. She had divorced her husband in 1945, when it was neither fashionable nor socially acceptable to be a single mother, because she never lost sight of her duty to her child and the man had not been enough of a father to keep around.

The tradition of ice cream was born early in this family. On Saturdays she would take her daughter, my mother, to a movie, stopping afterwards for dessert on the way home. Money was tight, so often they had plain vanilla scoops, but sometimes she splurged on hot fudge topping - ten cents extra. Mom raised us in the same tradition, considering ice cream a staple alongside milk and bread.

When Gran’ma turned 65, she retired from Mellon and bought a duplex in Sun City, the first home she’d ever owned. She had never been to Sun City before, but a woman she trusted liked it, and that was enough for her. Two months later, she went to lunch with the widower of her friend’s sister, her first date in forty years. They were married six months later, and she put her duplex up for sale and moved into her new husband’s home in Bradenton. They grew pineapples in the backyard, and had a lush garden of hibiscus, palm trees, and seasonal flowers. They went to the symphony and the theatre, played bridge, and traveled; and they each enjoyed a scoop of ice cream in the evening.

But she had lived in small places her whole life, and the big house never felt like home. The house was spectacular, but something always needed tending; and when her husband was away, the noises of the house spooked her. The first wife, too, seemed to linger, her furniture and dishes a constant reminder that it was her house, really, not Gran‘ma‘s. When Granddad agreed to move, she was elated, and he was elated to see her so.

They bought an apartment in a new retirement village. The village boasted several dining rooms, shuttle service for shopping and entertainment, a swimming pool, lovely grounds to walk, and a full-care nursing facility - a lovely place to grow old, they said, and grow old they did. When Granddad passed away nine years later, Gran’ma stayed on, volunteering at the hospital and playing golf to fill her days. She shopped and read and worked word puzzles; went to shows, museums, and art exhibits; hosted and attended parties throughout the years; played Scrabble and Yahtzee! with friends after dinner. She went to the Ringling Museum of Art on Sundays, when it was free, because she had learned as a single mother to take advantage of such treats.

She continued to dress for dinner every day, stylish pant suits with matching accessories, always a handbag, always a spritz of perfume. The scent of her perfume lingered in every nook of the apartment, on everything she touched, so that it was impossible to smell that perfume without thinking immediately of her.

But nothing brought her joy as great as her family. Her daughter had married and given her four grandchildren, and they -- we -- took precedence over all else in her life. Volunteer work suspended, parties cancelled, extra tickets bought to take us with her to the symphony or theatre, days at the beach planned for our enjoyment. We grandkids knew that, in her eyes, we could do no wrong: she loved and cherished us no matter what. To spend a week with Gran’ma was to spend a week bathed in love and acceptance. Our mother and we shared every confidence with her, went to her for advice and guidance, showered her in return with all the love we had to give. When friends would say their own grandmothers looked funny, or acted funny, or smelled funny, we didn’t understand - ours was a precious gem, and the only thing funny about her was the twinkle in her eyes when she laughed. When one of us got to visit her, the others would call so as not to be left out, and ask for play-by-play recounts of what transpired so we all felt we’d been there, too. We were not selfish about her, but shared the joy of her freely, understanding the sense of loss when it was someone else’s turn, not ours, to be with Gran’ma.

Because she was so healthy, exercised daily and ate well, our worlds stopped when she told us she had cancer. But she would not let us be sad: “I’m a tough cookie!”, she exclaimed. “This too shall pass.” She gave us hope, instead of leaning on us, and though we wanted to be her support we were utterly grateful for her selfless grace. She had always been the center of our collective universe, and we could not assimilate this gnawing cancer with the unifying thread of our clan. Her first surgery left her cut in two, an angry twelve-inch scar not quite healed when she had to go in for round two. And still, her bravado was genuine, her concern for us greater than for herself, as it always had been. She would not allow us to be sad on her account. She wanted only to bring joy into our lives, and kept up her fierce struggle, perhaps more for us than her.

I sent her a card in June, telling her I was on my way to surprise her. I sensed the end was near, and felt I had to see her again, to tell her in person how much I loved her, and how of all the people I’d ever known, she was the most vibrant, the most important, the most loved.

She called when she received it. “Dear, I’m very upset,” she began. “It’s so sweet of you to do this, but I don’t want you to see me when I’m sick! I want you to wait until I’m better, and we can have fun together. Please don’t be angry with me.”

“But I want to see you, Gran’ma,” I protested, “and I don’t mind that you’re sick. I want to take care of you, to read to you, to bring you ice cream…”

I could hear the smile in her voice, but not my tears reflected there. “Dear, I’m afraid I just won’t be any fun. I love you for thinking of me, but I’d rather have you visit when I can enjoy you being here. Right now I just don’t feel up to company, but I promise to have you when I’m better.” She had stalled the cancer for a year after the first surgery, enjoyed a year of remission, and so I believed her. She died two weeks later.

I was angry, more than that - I was hurt, rejected, told by this woman I so cherished that she didn’t want to see me. She had denied me the chance to say goodbye, to hold her and kiss her and tell her how much it hurt me to know she hurt, to imagine life without her in it. She had lied to me, said I would see her again when she had known I wouldn’t. She had refused me the opportunity to care for her the way she’d always cared for me, to show her I loved her as unconditionally as she’d always loved me. To be her strength when she no longer had her own.

As I wept inconsolably, for weeks stretching into months, the face I saw before me was hers - vibrant, alive…healthy. And in time, I came to realize that she had saved her greatest gift for the end - that I would always remember her, not sick and frail, but strong and full of life, laughing, eyes twinkling under her cloud of wispy grey hair, smelling not of sickness but of perfume. She had not denied me at all; she had denied herself the comfort of my arms, so that I could live the rest of my life remembering her the way she saw I needed to. She had lied to me to save me pain, to protect me. She had refused to allow the image of her that I carry in my heart to become tarnished with disease.

Now my home is filled with her possessions, and when I play my piano or sit at my dining room table, I think of her not with anger, but with overwhelming love. I still cry over her - I’m crying as I write this - but my tears are not for her. They are for me, for my staggering loss, for this amazing woman who no longer calls on Sundays, or waits for May and October when I will arrive. For her, I have only love, respect, and quiet amazement that even in her time of need she put me first. For her I am grateful that she no longer suffers, that she is now at peace.

I think of her every time I scoop ice cream. She did not allow a memorial service - “people stand up and say things that aren’t true - ‘he was a wonderful man’, they say, when we all know he was a perfect beast. I won’t allow such pomp and circumstance to surround my passing.” The difference is that she truly was a wonderful woman, and deserved to have that acknowledged. Nineteen months after her death, I’m finally getting to say so. She remains the most powerful influence in my life, comforting in my successes, forgiving in my mistakes, always with me. When it’s my time to die, I will be proud if I have lived my life half as well as she always gave me credit for, half as well as she lived hers.