WE WERE SO YOUNG ONCE
This story was written specifically for this collection. A friend of one my daughters lost her mother to cancer at an early age. She was a wonderful person, a true free spirit, and her debilitating illness and untimely death was a devastatingly cruel blow. She was relentlessly positive and upbeat, and left a huge impression on everyone she met. I remember our two families meeting up to form a single unruly tribe, then setting out from home and walking cross-country for mile after mile. We’d stop at a pub we all knew well – the midway point of our hike – for lunch. By road it was barely any distance, but on foot it was a different matter. We walked crumbled ruins of an ancient abbey, negotiated herds of cows, and followed the route of a long dried-up canal: all things
