My mom... honestly could have been mistaken for my sister, and a lot of people bought into that. She was—the sort of person who seemed out of this world, I guess? Kind of airheaded. Nearly gave me a heart attack when she fell off the pier once. And she'd hug me every chance she got.

[ If it sounds like complaining, it sort of is, in the way kids do about embarrassing parents. ]

But she was always calm, and she was...a very gentle person, too.