Only the good die young ..... Mary Delphine Tomkins 3.9.1945 - 31.5. 2018

My Kookum died last night.  
I only saw her last Saturday just before she flew to Edmonton, to die where she was born. 

I can't think of anything to write.  Even 24 hours after I was told, I still can't wrap my head around it.  One thought keeps popping up again and again.  She was an amazingly caring woman and did her very best to take care of all her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren for as long as I've known her.  As is the case for most caring persons, that care was not always reciprocated.  So the thought, which is a very very odd thought for an atheist-turned-agnostic physicist, is:  She's at peace now and she's with the people she missed most.

concert-goers in November 2015

As with any loved one who dies, there is regret.  Regretting not having done all of the nice things one was planning to do for them.  Those regrets will linger, but at least the memory of Kookum at a Neil Young concert will be a nice memory to cherish.












I remember the first time I ever met her, about 20 years ago.  I was arriving with George and I was nervous.  Meeting someone's grandmother is worse than meeting someone's parents.  At least for someone who grew up with a dragon grandmother.  The whole Native thing didn't do anything to reduce my worries.

Whom I met was a laughing woman younger than my mother who treated me like a friend and who didn't miss the opportunity to tell me that she thought that I'd be 'good' for George.

May 25

I regret keeping my distance to the large family over the years that George was alive (screaming kids are not my thing), especially because after George died, that family was there for me, even though they had to deal with their own grief.  

"Now you know where your family is" were Kookum's words after one occasion.  

Those were not empty words, neither for her nor for me. 
She meant it and she was right.












That person is gone now.  And a small part of me died with her.  
But a larger part of me, a part that only came into existence because I was fortunate enough to know her, will live on.  

And maybe that is the important lesson to be learned.