Back of our house was a yard that seemed large, and deep, running into municipal-owned uncultivated acreage on the steep bank of the Niagara River. There were trees of which Daddy was proud—a tall red maple that turned fiery-red and splendid in October, an even taller oak, a row of evergreens. (But Daddy was unsentimental about cutting down the oak after it was damaged by a windstorm, and he feared it might be blown down onto the house; he’d cut it down himself with a rented chain saw.) My mother tried to cultivate beds of flowers, with varying degrees of success: wisteria, peonies, day lilies, roses assailed by Japanese beetles, slugs, black rot and mold, that often defeated her by mid-summer for Mom could not enlist her older children’s help with the property as Daddy could.

Our house was at the dead end of Black Rock Street above the river.

I cried a lot when I was sent away. Any river or stream I saw, even on TV or in a photograph, tears would be triggered. You have to get hold of yourself, Violet. You will make yourself sick. You can’t—just— keep—crying . . . My aunt Irma pleaded with me.

The poor woman, I was not nice to her. She could not bear a broken heart in a child impossible to heal by any effort of her own.

No matter how far away I came to live from the Niagara River, it has gotten into my dreams. For it is not like most other rivers—relatively short (thirty-six miles), and relatively narrow (at its widest, eighty-five hundred feet), and exceptionally fast-moving and turbulent. As you approach the river calls to you—whispers that become ever louder, deafening. The river is turbulent like a living thing shivering inside its skin. Miles from the thunderous falls like a nightmare that calls—Come! Come here. Strife and suffering are absolved here.

That morning in December when you wake to see that the river has frozen all the way across, or nearly; corrugated black ice with a fine light dusting of snow over it, the eye registers as beauty.

But I had a happy childhood in that house. No one can take that from me.

Best Kisses!

A GAME. A HAPPY GAME. THE WAY MOM WOULD STOOP OVER to kiss me, suddenly.

When I was a little girl. Best kisses come by surprise!

Lacing her (strong) fingers through my (smaller) fingers. Securing my fingers with hers. Preparing to cross a busy street. Ready. Set. Go!

A long time ago when Mommy loved me as much as Daddy did. When I knew (without needing to be told) that Mommy would take care of me and keep me from harm even if this harm was Daddy.

“IT’S EASY TO LOVE THEM WHEN THEY’RE LITTLE”—MOM LAUGHED, talking with a friend. “Later, not so easy.”

Obituary