This is going to be very brief.
My mother, Alice Louise Godard Weber, passed away in the early hours of August 18, 2012. She was 88 years old, and she died at home with my younger brother and his wife, peacefully, and not in some impersonal hospital room somewhere.
She was a wonderful, intelligent, witty person who was often hilariously funny and spent 20 years of her life as her mother's primary caregiver. She didn't read for pleasure herself, but held a master's degree in American Lit and went back to get her PhD at 65. In the 60s and 70s, when women simply didn't rise to the top of advertising agency copywriting departments, she did just that and then launched her own agency. I began writing advertising copy for her when I was 17, and she was one of the finest editors I ever knew. And she was one of my strongest boosters, confident --- long before I was --- that I could succeed as a novellist if I was willing to take the risk. My bluecollar father taught me (and my siblings) the joys of reading for entertainment; my mom shared the joys of learning to write with me. She played an enormous role in what I've ended up doing with my life, she raised five loving children, she lived her life in accordance with her principles and beliefs, she taught all of us to do the same, and the world is a poorer place without her but I am far, far richer for having known her.
