AUGUS T 2026 FEATURE: THE LEGACY WE LIVE In the summer between middle school and high school, I spent a few weeks in upstate New York with my grandfather and his sister, my great Aunt Marie. I’d just met Aunt Marie because she was an East Coast resident, and my side of the family was squarely West Coast. But that summer, when she met me at the Syracuse airport and offered a card game to pass the time (Authors), I fell in love with a woman who would become not just an aunt but a mentor and a comrade, the person who was always on my side, who funded my education, inspired my writing and sent me endless letters of encouragement during my Peace Corps service in China.
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