wasillaalaskaby300

In midafternoon, I received a call from Charlie's cell phone, but after I answered, "Hello Charlie," I got this response:

"It's me, Melanie."

And indeed, it was. The two were just driving out of Anchorage with Charlie at the wheel, headed for Vagabond Blues in Palmer. Melanie asked if Margie and I wanted to come to Palmer and join them for coffee.

I said, "sure," but I could not get Margie to leave the house so I would have to go by myself.

I took a shower first, and then suddenly discovered that I was going to leave later than I intended.

I rushed out of the house and when I got to Vagabond, was shocked to discover that I had forgotten my camera.

This left me with only my iPhone, the lens of which is hopelessly smudged.

That was okay. I would go for the impressionistic effect.

Boy. When I look at Melanie in this blurred picture, the impression that I get is of my mom. Physically speaking, Mom really seeped through me into Melanie.

But Mom would have never joined any of us for coffee. The thought that we were even drinking coffee would have broken her heart.

As it happened, in the end, although she never saw me take a sip of coffee, her dedicated Mormon heart was thoroughly broken anyway and that broken heart took both her life and Dad's thereafter.

Afterward, Melanie rode with me back to Wasilla and Charlie joined us here. We ate Spam chunks for dinner, mixed with rice and veggies. It was pretty good.

Then Jim and Charlie hung out for awhile.

Chennai, India: Eight studies of Little Miss Vaidehi