Fred's sister. His closest family confidante.
Younger by two years, connected across a lifetime. She was in Europe at 22, teaching English in Lisbon while I was figuring out Denver. She loaned me her RAV4 for my first Burning Man. She’s the one who tells me things I should know — she was the one who explained the scooter-and-dog walk while Phil was still in the hospital.
She went to Williams, then Claremont Graduate School for Education, taught elementary school, traveled extensively, and has lived a full and varied life that I’ve been present for intermittently and grateful for throughout. A grandmother, active in her church, she runs an English conversation class for thirty non-English-speaking Hispanics in San Diego. She plays pickleball.
She gets my full stories — the long versions, the ones I edit for most people. She handles logistics, she handles communications, she handles the space between Phil's silence and Elise's forwarded texts. She ran a junkyard retrieval for my totaled Jeep. She took Dad’s car to him in Pine Valley when he needed it.
I value her enormously. That’s not a sentimental observation. It’s just true.