I've been looking for quotations about kindness and wanting like crazy to avoid Tennessee Williams or bumper sticker sentiments about "random acts" because this is really about real kindness, true acts of kindness, generous hearts and how they've buoyed me in the last month.

I hadn't realized how much it meant to be on the receiving end of kindness during this time. I don't mean I don't know how helpful folks can be, but specifically, small and big acts of pure kindness. Every email has been welcome and every "I'm so sorry" has been heard. But there's more to say.

We no longer do a lot of things that people used to do to mourn. I won't be wearing black for a year and then gray and mauve (I look smashing in those colors but I don't do corsets well.( (No I lie. I don't do corsets. I did that during the years I was dealing with spondylolisthesis and bad back and back surgery - both braces and corsets. Nu-uh. no thank you Amarylis.) A vast number of friends have lost parents (including me but this is different) and their advice and understanding has been unparalleled in helping me through things.

I'm not religious, and while my mother was involved in every way with her temple, she expressed doubts and we did not do the more traditional mourning customs that many Jews participate in. We did not sit shiva for a week. I did wear the ribbon given to me by the rabbi, because i understood its significance and appreciated what he told me. I wore it for a week which meant I had it on flying home. The flight attendant was, it seemed, extra solicitous of me - was she just checking on the woman in the wheelchair? just nice to her passengers? Did I tell her? i don't know but it was sweet. And kind.

To Janice, who called me within minutes of my posting a, well, a cry for help on my Facebook page, thank you for your kindness. She stayed with me for hours, refusing to leave even when I said it was okay. She stayed while i blithered and talked and rambled. She'd brought her car so she could go get Stu, who was not home. She went and picked Stu up from the movie theater, where he'd gone, completely unaware of the crisis. Hell, I was completely unaware as there was no crisis. But Stu had said "I'll call when I am out of the movie, and I'd left a distressed call and then a follow-up that begged him to call the second he got out of the movie. Rather than have him take the bus home, she went and got him and brought him home and only then left.

Thank you to Luke, who called seconds after Janice did to see what was wrong and stayed on the phone with me until Janice knocked on the door.

To the friend who simply sent us money via paypal to help us deal with the immediacy of a trip we had not planned. i won't name names because I suspect this friend would not want us to but what a kind kind gift. Anyone who knows me knows that traveling is a Huge Hassle for me and we had to plan to travel cross-country immediately. To a city with very little accessible transportation. While everyone would wait for me to get there, Jewish custom is that you bury someone quickly, usually within 24 hours. Pamela, the cantor, who officiated at the funeral and who was one of my mother's closest friends in the world, would push to extend that but we had to get there. And did we mention the weather?

To my friends Richard and Holly and Kevin and Linda. Friends from high school. I missed the 40th reunion last year but had reconnected with several classmates. Thanks to Nancy who must have put the word out - how do you tell people by email "my mother died"? And I did want some people to know but I could not find a way. And then Nancy who would have been there, wrecked her shoulder. I know she did it in solidarity with me (I had just started PT for tendonitis).

To Bill and Peg. I know somewhere here on this blog, i've written about Bill Cibes, a mentor and friend and just possibly the smartest person I know. It sounds so odd and is nuts to admit this but after my sister called me and my head was spinning so, and I had tried Stu and left word, i called Bill. I wanted him to know I'd be in town and for him to know about my mother. And I knew he'd say the right thing, tell me the right thing. Which he did. I needed to know about the airport and the upcoming weather and he was right there with that information. These two people are really important in my life. I've had some of the best conversations of my life with Bill Cibes, and I love hanging out with Bill and Peg. They came to the funeral, they were there at the house and later in the week, took Stu and me to lunch. So they finally got to meet each other after I'd babble don for years about these guys in my life. Their kindness, their conversation, I felt looked after. That this guy I admire so is my friend means something very special to me. And they even knew what to bring to a house in morning (oh and yum.)

Tanks to Rae for taking my phone call and letting me blither. As i told her, I needed to talk with someone calm and sane and I knew she was. She was calm and sane when she was chairing Bouchercon, so now that it was over, I really knew how calm and sane she was. And she let me talk and blither and I have no idea what I said. but oh, thank yo so much.

For now if you'll forgive the oversight, I won't go into details about Stu. You know him, right? And you know that he is such a nice man, and such a good man, and such a kind human being that it's redundant. And I've talked elsewhere about his strength and support when he was also in mourning. He'd known my mother from early days, when we were still dating and liked her so very much. And got her. And she was, needless to say, nuts about him.

Then let's talk about Cornelia Read and Leslie Turek. I believe I met Leslie at a convention, before I moved to Boston in 1985. In a hot tub, I think, in something like Texas? Austin? I've missed her a lot. We spent lots of time together over meals and garden walks and ice cream. I have missed her friendship and her insights and her humor. We saw each other some years ago when I got to Boston and she and Alex took me to Mary Chung (on one of my two visits there in a week.)

I don't remember when I met Cornelia. It feels like I've known her from birth, but it's been, what, 10 years? i know how me met (via email via DorothyL) and who said "you two should meet.) I know that i call her my best friend because we finish each others' sentences. She gets me. Hell, we start each other's sentences. I envy those of her friends like Ariel and Muffy who've known her longer.

Let me tell you about kindness. Cornelia offered to rent a van. Then she decided to rent a trailer. She did not have a trailer hitch. At one point, she was going to have to drive to another state (yes, they're small states but still. Dammit) to get one. (I did not hear about this til after, bless her.) She didn't apparently but she rented a U-Haul and drove to Logan Airport in Boston, met Stu and me there. They lifted the power chair into the U-Haul and she drove us to West Hartford. Did mention the weather? She then stayed to attend the funeral. She and Stu went to the graveside while I stayed in the car and they represented me at the interment. She then said she could come back if I wanted her to and drove off. And did I mention her father died last year? And that she had a conversation with someone who told her something about my mother I had never heard?

Over the next days, Stu and I tried to figure out how to get back to Boston. I posted about it on Facebook thinking "what a ninny I am.". I hoped that maybe - long shot that it was - maybe someone had a kid who might have a van and we could pay him. Within minutes, Leslie got in touch saying she had a smallish SUV thingy and maybe it would fit. And Leslie drove down from Boston. She and Stu and the stranger int he garage lifted the damn power chair onto its side and shove it in. Loaded our bags and drove us, with a stop at Rein's delicatessen in Vernon (hi folks! we've missed you!) to the Logan Airport Hilton, where, she had suggested we get a room and fly out the next day. Oh, the weather? Did I mention? And we check into our lovely ADA room, called Alex, found Legal Seafood at the airport had dinner, talked until midnight and flew home to Seattle on Friday.

And there's Laura, my childhood (and I mean childhood as we were in kindergarten together) friend who came by late on Monday and we caught up on our lives and who offered the concrete help of picking stuff up and giving it away because her mother Burnette, our neighbor from childhood, had died last year and she was still dealing. And to Wendy, who read the obit in a newspaper we didn't know existed and sent a note; a woman I last saw when I was what? 10? But who set about finding me to send a lovely card. And again to my special buddy Richard because I know how challenging every day is for you, my friend. And Linda! who came to the funeral and didn't stick around. A friend I've been looking for for years. All of whom will be there when I come back in a month or two.

I've got no great quotations about kindness. U just know that kindness holds you up when you have no strength left.
And holds you and holds you.