Michele has said this much better than I can: I am with my mother, Phyllis Jean Heaney. She is slipping away from us quite rapidly, and peacefully. I would like to add that Michele is also peaceful. She has spent the last couple of days – and nights – with her mother at the Agis assisted living facility.

At the same time, a portion of Michele’s extended, paternal, family – long dispersed by the Holocaust and slowly reforming – had gathered at Tahoe. I had the honor of joining them and showing some of them a smattering of the Smoke Creek Desert, some of the eastern Sierra, and a bit of Yosemite (covered in smoke).