June 2, 2026

“You found his palette,“ asserted my mother. This would’ve been maybe January 1994. Pancreatic cancer had made her wan, tired, and gaunt but she still exercised her artistic eye.

I had just held up a newly purchased infant outfit. The baby was due towards the end of March. It was a race at that point between life and death. Mom had already outlived the doctors’ prognostications by a couple of months – a status that will surprise no one who ever encountered her will and determination in life. Would she survive long enough to meet her second grandson?

No, she would not.

Cary was not yet two, so of course I had ample hand me downs. But as a second child the same gender as the first child myself, I knew how important it was to give Danny some new outfits too.

The soft browns and taupes of that tiny vest comprised what my mother called “Danny’s palette.” And it is also the colorway of the quilt that Tina made for me. How did she know? 

When she heard that Danny had died, Tina set to work. She lovingly and skillfully made a beautiful blanket, already gift enough — but in Danny’s colors? Woosh. 

My mother would’ve approved.

Speaking of my mother and of Tina, Tina enclosed two books with the quilt. I devoured the one titled “Grief is Love” in two sittings. The author, Marisa Renee Lee, talks about grief in lucid, lovely prose. She’d been devastated first by the death of her mother and then some years later, by the loss of a hard-won IVF pregnancy.

I have two important takeaways.

The first is that I didn’t grieve my mother. I didn’t have time. Danny, born one month and three days after her death, was a super fussy baby. Not only that but the minute Danny was born, two-year-old Cary decided that he’d outgrown naps. Money was tight. Ken left the house at 6:30 a.m. and returned at 6:30 p.m. Most mornings both boys were raring to go at 5:30.

I can’t tell you how many times in those days my jaw dropped to look at the clock in the morning and learn that lunchtime was still three hours off.

We had a calico kitty back then. Calypso. In the June after my mother’s death and Danny’s birth, she was hit and killed by a car. Oh, how I cried! And I knew that when I sobbed for our sweet Calypso, I was also sobbing for my mother.

But?

Maybe some of the tears I cry for Danny are also tears for my mother.

The other takeaway was the author’s notion that we who survive are part of the dead loved one’s legacy. In other words, I am part of Danny’s legacy.

How thought-provoking. What about his person could I express in some measure to continue his energy?

I’ve talked about what a curious person Dan was – remarkable enough in any adult, really, but especially in one who struggled academically. His general knowledge was impressive. He would’ve been all over that meteor story of last week. He would’ve understood that the hail that fell in Denver recently was a product of a warm weather trend, not a cold one.

Can one cultivate curiosity and if so, how?

I plan to support the National Parks because they were such a source of inspiration and succor to Dan — but that will have to wait for a president who isn’t spraying pesticides all over Yosemite (or is it Yellowstone?), who isn’t lifting kill-bans on wolves or selling off forest lands, and who isn’t eviscerating endangered species protections for creatures in the Gulf (the Gulf of Mexico, I don’t need to add). 

Gratitude update: yesterday we received notice that the federal government has discharged Danny’s student loans. I’m grateful that is done.