Note before: This is an old “Diary Entry” from the Modem-Help site, re-jigged into the etmg format. The original site is now long gone.

In the face of the fact that these diary pages, across the last nine months, contain only the news of the death of two close family members, I thought it fitting to make sure that at least one page contains a bright picture of life. This is Micaela, not yet 2 (next January), photographed recently whilst in California.

Postscript:
I showed Micky’s photo above to a friend & his immediate response was that she looked so sad. He was right, of course. Micky was in the USA because her grandmother was dying, so her life was steeped in sadness at that time.

This is what I wrote in the Diary a week earlier (13 Oct 2003):

Liisa’s mother, Josephine Guzman Rangel, has died today at 6:45 pm in the same hospital near her home at Salinas, California that had been giving her chemotherapy for a stomach tumour which had turned metastatic. A Rosary starts at 7pm, Sun 19 Oct at the Whitehurst-Muller Mortuary, and the funeral service will be 1pm Monday, 20 Oct at Madonna del Sasso, Salinas. She will be buried at the Queen of Heaven cemetery. A reception will be held after at the Church. God bless you Josie, and I am sorry that I kept calling you Susie.

...and then the entry immediately prior to that (10 Jan 2003) (I was barely able to function at that time, having been witness to 6 months of ovarian cancer torturing my mother to death):

My mother has died at 10 minutes past 8 in the morning at Dove House hospice in Hull, today. The funeral will be at 10 am on 20 Jan. No flowers - donations to the Hospice, please.

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Alex Kemp