6. Mother was living in San Bruno, California, at that time

Mother was living in San Bruno, California, at that time.  She was in her late 70's.  I would visit her occasionally but for the most part I left her alone.  It had always been that way, and I had always thought she wanted it that way.  She was a very independent woman and had passed along to us the meaning of independence as we grew up.  But I would always make it a point to visit her at least once a month and on the major holidays like her birthday or Easter or Thanksgiving.  As for the Christmas holidays, she always spent that with her grandchildren in Madison, Wisconsin.

Mother was resilient.  She had survived the Great Depression, World War II, a broken toe, a broken arm, a shattered knee cap, and the premature death of my Father in 1974.  As a family she had followed my father and had boldly taken us all to Spain where we had spent four and a half years and then to Bangkok, Thailand where I had grown up from 1960 through 1969.  We had all returned to the United States in 1969 where I experienced culture shock in a foreign land to an extent I will never forget.  After the death of father, mother also lived through a multi-arterial bypass, breast cancer, and heart surgery.

My older brother, Billy, whom I really didn't know very well, was living in Taluca Lake, California, when Gabe walked out of my life, and my younger sister, Mary, whom I considered my best friend, lived in Chico.  My sister, Judy, whom I had always admired and wanted to emulate growing up, had moved to Madison, Wisconsin years before soon after her wedding.  All were married, and, although Billy and Mary resided in California, neither of them visited mother often.  In fact, Billy had at one point decidedly stopped communicating with her.  Why he stopped, we didn't know, and years later mother would send an email to all my siblings including my brother asking why her only son had stopped speaking to her.  Sadly, she passed away before she would never get an answer.  So, I had taken it upon myself to at least call her once a week to make sure she was doing okay.