My mother did so much more than simply make me. She was my anchor, my unconditional “home base.”

Others will talk about her as a tough lady of hearty eastern Washington pioneer stock, sturdy support system to friends and strangers, a bulwark of the Snohomish antique-shop strip, and a valiant survivor of condition after condition (breast cancer, macular degeneration, chronic bronchitis, two fractured vertebrae, and finally a series of heart attacks).

But I will think of her (always) as a gentle heart within a tough-as-steel soul.