In reply to by Anonymous

It was heartbreaking for me to learn that she had left instructions that her mother was not to attend her funeral, but I recall distinctly the moment when we two were alone in her kitchen on her fiftieth birthday during a party she had catered herself when she confided to me that "the hardest thing for me right now is how to let my mother know that she will outlive me." It revealed a small trace of humanity that was totally absent for all the years before.

I was always known as Eleanor's best friend. We had been registered in kindergarten on the same day and our friendship developed over all the years of education, maturity, marriage, and children. Sam's connection to me is one I shall always cherish, for the inscription in my copy of WHO SHE WAS says simply, "I could not have done it without you." And so, if I have in some way contributed to the resolution of his quest to find the mother he missed, I shall always be eternally grateful.

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