Extraordinary

See the lady on the right? In the brown dress? She was extraordinary.


She could trace her lineage on her mother's side back to Charles Martel, Charlemagne's grandfather, for Pete's sake. 


She was one of seven children, an extraordinary family in which there were four children all the same age, two sets of twins very close together. She and her identical twin sister were one of those pairs. She moved to California from Baltimore when she was quite young with her other sister, two extraordinary young women off on a lark that lasted the rest of her life. 


She met the guy in the picture, the one I call My Beloved (yes, she was his first wife) in California and they had twenty-five years together before deciding to go their separate ways.


She worked for an extraordinary family of great wealth and huge philanthropy. 


She experienced extraordinary losses in her life - a favorite brother to AIDS, a dear sister and her Dad to cancer all within a four year span then, later, her mother and one of her brothers. She gave comfort to other grieving people as she found her way through her own sorrow, and became an extraordinary volunteer for the Center for Attitudinal Healing. In fact, she was named California State Volunteer of the Year for her work there.


She and My Beloved raised two extraordinary daughters, and she was a beloved aunt to her nieces and nephew, and was busy with the next generation when she was diagnosed with a vicious cancer. 


She was a dear friend to so many people who knew her and many of her friendships were lifelong. During her illness, her Caring Bridge website was inundated with messages from well wishers. 


It doesn't seem possible that, just last summer, she was laughing and healthy as I photographed her and My Beloved escorting their daughter down a sunny slope to be married. Of course, she lives on in her daughters and her grandchildren, and in the memories of her family and many friends, but she will be extraordinarily missed.