One cool life

Kay Barris at the Lake Simcoe cottage c. 1960.
Kay Barris at the Lake Simcoe cottage c. 1960.

My sister Kate, my wife Jayne and I sat at her bedside, the same way we have almost daily these past six months. That day, last Thursday, the world was acknowledging the tragic loss of many lives on Sept. 11, 2001. We were marking the loss of one life. My mother – Kay Barris – had died minutes before we arrived about midday. We felt myriad emotions. Sadness. Loss. Some relief that the pain in her weary and withering body had ended. Then, a hospital social worker appeared, passed on condolences, smiled and offered an epitaph of my mother.

“She was one, cool chick,” Brenda Stein said.

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