Walking, walking in the rain

As I walked the dogs this morning in the mist that had a hint of salt and honeysuckle scenting it, I was swept back in time and location to Monhegan Island, ME, 1973. I was with my family and paternal grandparents. Because it was gloomy, we did jigsaw puzzles at the inn instead of going to the beach, and picked wild strawberries on the hill. We took a mail boat to Matinicus Rock (which I would later learn about in the context of Abbie Burgess, female lighthouse keeper, hero) to look at puffins, which we saw in great quantity. At one point, the boat pitched, and I stepped on my grandmother’s foot, rather hard. Although she was nice enough about it, I felt just terrible. Shortly after that, she had a stroke and died. When my father told me, I cried and cried, not because I was sad that she died – I didn’t really know what it meant then, and we weren’t that close – but because I blamed the foot-trodding incident.