I'm thinking of the days

My aunt has died. This is one of my mother's college friends. She had suffered a stroke last month, just before Mother's Day, and then another one a few days later. Monday she had another one, and that was it.

The aunt was one of those who'd almost always been in my family circle. She was also the globetrotter of the group. My parents love to travel a lot, but they were only able to get away on one or two trips a year while they were raising kids. My aunt was constantly going away. A lot of the warmth I feel for Newark Airport, which shut up because I do, comes from times that we were all gathered together to see her off, or pick her up. As a kid I just knew that the airport was this fascinating spindly structure and she was going off to fascinating new places. And we would go home, to the fascinating view of the Anheuser-Busch neon logo flapping in the night.

When my parents were able to get to really travelling, they always relied on her as travelling companion. She paired very well with both my mother and father, particularly since if there was anything my father wanted to do that my mother didn't, my aunt was usually up for it, or could be very easily. This is the aunt that accidentally fell in the ocean when she and my parents made their trip to Antarctica. My father loves telling the story of how on one tour group a guy very sheepily, finally, approached him to say, ``I'm sorry, I've been trying to figure out, which one is your wife?'' My father immediately answered, ``We're Mormons.'' My mother was horrified. She still is. My aunt cackled.

Apart from that aunt's husband (who died decades ago, before I really knew him), this is the first death among my parents' group of friends and family. The coming decade is going to be hard.

Trivia: In 1926 Japanese car companies made 245 motor vehicles, while Ford-Japan imported 8,677. Source: Car Wars: The Untold Story, Robert Sobel.

Currently Reading: Obsession: A History, Lennard J Davis.

PS: A Summer 2015 Mathematics A To Z: knot, a nice familiar little term that means almost exactly what you imagine. Third of these since my last mathematics-posts roundup.