Linda.

I received some sad news recently; my mom's best friend, Linda, has died. Linda was a remarkable woman. I remember hearing stories about how she danced at my parents wedding and did the limbo like her spine was made of rubber. About how she became my mom's friend is high school when my mom was the new girl at school with the funny accent. About how she dragged my mom into water skiing (which lead to my mom being black and blue just in time for her first date with my dad) and taught her how to drive (a complete disaster, I'm told) and sail (they totally capsized). She was a legend, through and through.

At some point, Linda was misdiagnosed with MS and I can't remember a time when she wasn't in a wheelchair. After a decade of living under the assumption she had MS, Linda learned she actually had primary lateral sclerosis (PLS), a rare neuromuscular disease characterized by progressive muscle weakness in the voluntary muscles. She never let it slow her down though, raising her son, Sean, even as her marriage fell apart and her health continued to fail.

I used to play with her son as a tot and when I was twelve, it was Linda who came with my mom and I to find me a dress for my elementary school graduation. She was fun and she stubborn. She was daring and funny and brave; a true role model in every sense. She was the sort of person you wish you could be and, failing that, you could raise your daughter to be. The world's suffered an immeasurable loss with her passing.

SAID the Lion to the Lioness-'When you are amber dust,-
No more a raging fire like the heat of the Sun
(No liking but all lust)-
Remember still the flowering of the amber blood and bone,
The rippling of bright muscles like a sea,
Remember the rose-prickles of bright paws
Though the fire of that sun the heart and the moon-cold bone are one.'

- Edith Sitwell