I re-read a little more of Carol Burdick's Woman Alone - A Farmhouse Journal this morning.  It was touching to recall encounters with her parents, who were my mother's cousins, and to recall the old farmhouse her father had rebuilt, which they and she retreated to.  Her parents had invited my parents (and probably grandmother and great aunt) and me out there for afternoon visits, and I had cherished them, always wanting more.   After she'd inherited the farmhouse, C.B. hired me to mow the lawn and repair and paint the siding.  I loved spending afternoons out there, alone, too.
C.B. spoke often about needing to write, and I feel that need, too.  In notes on my journal when I took her "A Place In The Universe" class, she said that perhaps I had a book in me.  It needs to come out, I daresay.  Perhaps it helped her to find some peace.  Perhaps it may work for me, too.
Her book is ostensibly about dealing with the deaths of parents, and I now know it is tough stuff, even well after the fact.  I recall that C.B. left a message on our answering machine soon after our father died.  She and he had gotten up early many mornings and played tennis together where the Saxon Inn now stands.  Her message, as I recall, was simply "I just heard about your Dad.  He was wonderful . . . "  This from a woman who proclaimed a lack of faith, about a minister of the church she says she'd rejected.  I hope she found some peace, as she despaired over her parents' waning and apprehended her own.  May we all.