My aunt Iris was direct: “The vision of her jumping will never leave me. Because behind her I see myself, pushing her.”

And yet I have also listened to my mother and my aunts talking about their mother, how they intellectually knew that they shouldn’t feel guilty, how they were not responsible, how they did everything for her, and were they never to go to college? Never to leave the island? Lucy had their father, who loved her, cared for her, as best he could. She had friends and neighbors she had known for years. My mom and aunts came home to visit all the time, including all summer to work in the family grocery store, in shifts, so someone would always be with Lucy.

My mother became a nurse, her interest in medicine, in healing her mother, sparking that interest, but then, as she traveled the world, following my dad in the military, where she often couldn’t work, she started her own small floral business. She loved arranging flowers and making bouquets, as she had with her mother, so that’s what she did.

My aunt Camellia owned a huge nursery and a mail order bulb business outside of Seattle. “I wanted to calm people’s spirits, soothe their angst, comfort them in their need, through flowers and gardens.” Again, you can see my grandma’s love of flowers in the business Aunt Camellia started. She sold it for a huge profit when she moved to the island ten years ago and changed her career to become a “Lotion and Potion Pixie.”

Aunt Camellia was married for two years, but her husband, as she says, “turned the other way and decided that I did not have the right plumbing,” and never married again. When her husband was trying to pretend he wasn’t gay, they did get pregnant twice, but Aunt Camellia miscarried. Then something happened, she won’t say what, and she was no longer able to have children, which broke her heart.

There have been a number of long-term boyfriends for Aunt Camellia. “I like romance, and there is nothing wrong with bringing a new spiritual romantic partner into your life, regularly, every three years or so for a new physical and mental awakening. Tra la la.”

Aunt Iris is a botanist. She traveled the world for decades, studying plants and flowers through her job as a university professor. Her husband of forty years, Arvid, was with her when he died in Kenya of a heart attack, and she’s missed him every day since. Her love of photographing flowers came from Lucy. She photographs them from under the stem, or with half the flower in the frame, or drooping. They’re lovely, but people always stop and stare and try to figure the photo out. Somehow the flowers look emotional, sad or alone or joyous, or as if they’re going to straighten up and talk to you.

Even their business reflects Grandma Lucy. The inside of Flowers, Lotions, and Potions is painted pink, the ceiling a lighter pink. They play country music, rock, or classical depending on their mood. In the center is a round antique table where a huge bouquet is always flourishing.