Passings

Our dear Mayumi lost her mom, Harue, on New Year's Eve. Mrs. Stroy, as I knew her, was a beautiful, beautiful woman. Together with her husband Albert, they always made sure that Mayumi's friends were well fed and taken care of.

Mrs. Stroy was born in Japan and still made a lot of Japanese dishes. She used to harvest roe in the waters off Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. She told me that she felt like such a "Mahr-maid" standing there in over waist deep water, with the Bay flowing around her. I had not seen Mrs. Stroy in years, but we always hoped that she would get the chance to come over the mountains and to go for a swim in the various hot springs we have here. The opportunity has passed, but I will think of her when the water at the springs pulls this way and that.


I have also been moved by Sir Edmund Hillary's passing. I was struck by pictures of his Everest ascent as a little kid and really struck by the Himalayan Trust school we passed through in Pangboche on our Everest Base Camp trek in 1996. These sentiments gave away to a stint about 8 years ago of reading as many books as I could about him. He was remarkable for his spare words and honesty about his abilities, his drinking, and the loss of his first wife and youngest daughter. His modesty was not for show, and I reckon that they just don't make many men like him anymore.