No one seemed to mourn Clarise adequately—rather her death was more important than her life, thought Annie, but not to Mark. After his mother was unable to care for him, Aunt Clarise took him under her protection, a sweet woman who cared for the disadvantaged.
Raised in poverty with his mother and her brother, she later benefited financially from two truncated marriages but used that wealth to further charity for those less fortunate. She lived her life in relative seclusion. Later, in her fifties, her health failed. After two hip surgeries she was forced to use a walker to ambulate. The constant pain didn’t keep his aunt from Mark’s side when he needed her most, after his mother died, and before he moved to Vancouver and met Annie. Sweet Clarise, with her piercing blue-grey eyes, her whi
