It was my last day in New Orleans before heading to the North Shore of Lake Ponchartrain to say goodbye to my mom and sisters. On my way out of the French Quarter I opened the windows driving slowly and intentionally down the narrow streets, taking in the indescribable smells at each new corner: braised beef, boiled crawfish, fried oysters. A soft, steady breeze pushed wisps of white through the azure sky. And I do mean azure; the sunlight was of the bright and happy sort, not intense and mean like in the summers.

I was wistful as I drove to my cousin Michael’s house near the fairgrounds where he and his neighbors are taking their homes to the full potential with colors and flowers and the smell and sounds of life. Someone digging a garden, someone running a power saw, someone walking beside a serious tricycler to the corner store, yards being mowed to offer parking for the upcoming JazzFest.

Michael is the one who gave me the portrait of MaMere which hangs proudly in the front parlor of the Bed and Breakfast in Oregon that bears her name. A gesture for which I profusely thank him every chance I get. The picture was done in pastel charcoals from an old black and white portrait of a newly wed Berthe Adele Aimont Gouedy. A portrait that I spent hours staring at and coveting as a child. With all of the cousins and kin that MaMere produced, I never thought, never, in a million years that it would one day be mine. Michael gave it to me after his father’s death and his mother’s subsequent lapse into dementia. He said I should have it because, of all our cousins, I look the most like MaMere.

The picture was done by my Aunt Kate, mother to Michael and his older brother Patrick (and MaMere’s youngest daughter). I guess their names are a tip of the hat to the Gouedy (nee O’Gouedy) that comes down through us thanks to MaMere falling for a young Irish salesman during her determined stint as a clerk at Maison Blanche on Canal Street.

Aunt Kate once told me that she had gotten through her hot-flashy stage and beyond by doing charcoal portraits at Jackson Square. She told me she had to get out of the house. She remembered her mother, MaMere, telling her that throughout her own “change” she had felt like a closet full of wire hangers. So, Aunt Kate took a cue and preemptively took her own talents out of the closet and onto St. Ann Street. And for the next forty years, until Hurrican Katrina, you could see her there where she stopped every day at 4:00 for her Happy Hour: two aspirins and a Dixie beer.