Sue Dodson

My Aunt Sue died last night in a car accident. That's almost the entirety of what I know right now. She was a really warm, loving, fun, special lady, and I always made a point to visit her and my uncle when I was in the Bay area (which was more often that I would have liked for a while, but not quite often enough in the last year or so). She lived in a little town uphill from Santa Cruz, on the edge of a redwood forest, and it was a fine time just to go walking and talking with them in the company of those giants. I'd been planning on going out for Aikido Fall Camp in SF in mid-November, but now I'm thinking I'll be going out for the memorial service instead.

I came home this evening to an answering machine message from my mother, saying "call me." Just that - just "call me - almost never a good sign. Our parents are all firmly in their 70's, and I'm starting to dread getting that call. It's hardly easier, not much of a relief, when it's not one of them, but Mom's younger sister. I don't mind the thought of dying myself, but losing others is hard.

Ironically, this picture was taken last year at my grandparents' grave site, during a family reunion in Wisconsin.