A last minute trip to Helsinki
In March 2020, I was going to go to NYC for an awards banquet. I was allowed a plus one, and I was going to bring my dad. We both knew that my mom was who I would have taken if she hadn’t died in 2019.
My mom would have read all the other books that were finalists and winners. She would have been too nervous to talk to many of the authors who she had loved, but she would have talked and talked to any of them who were seated at our table. The authors would have loved my mother, and I would have been liked by proxy.
This is how I felt about most of my interactions with my mom by my side. People liked me, but they liked her more. She was warm and generous and funny. She could talk to anyone, getting even the quietest people to open up. She taught me how to listen, but she also taught me how to ask questions, good, caring, honest questions.