What’s in a name, the young man wanted to know. More specifically, what’s so special about the term “Mom” that he should continue to use it for his entire life—since he was now an adult and on equal footing with his mother?

We were having this conversation in the most unlikely of venues. That afternoon I had decided to quit procrastinating and go renew my driver’s license.

My mother seemed unusually sad on the March morning that Jeff and I left her apartment to drive to New England. The depth of her emotion struck me as odd. We’d visited with her for several days on our way north, and we planned to stop there again on our trip home. “Mom,” I said, “we’ll be back in two weeks, for at least a couple of nights.”

“Oh,” she said, putting on a brave smile. “That’s right. I’ll see you soon.”

Could she really have forgotten? She was doing so well—living without pain, eating well, even playing an occasional hand of bridge with other women in her retirement complex. Still, I drove away feeling unsettled.

When I was a teenager, I occasionally babysat for a couple of girls, Tracy and Kerry Rankin, one carrot top, one white blonde. They had the palest skin I’d ever seen. Mostly I remember their knobby elbows and knees. I couldn’t envision them as adults. We didn’t keep in touch.

A few years ago I got a message from their mother. They were all coming to the Outer Banks for a family reunion. Would I stop by?

When I walked into their rental cottage two gorgeous women, one redhead, one blonde, greeted me with huge, beautiful smiles. My mouth fell open. They were tall and graceful, with glowing skin.

The house rang with the sound of cousins laughing and jumping off bunk beds. Tracy, the redhead, had three children. Kerry had adopted four children from a Russian orphanage—which is the reason for this story.

It’s a tale of dreams dashed, redrawn, and realized.

 A few weeks ago, a car accident in our community took the life of a child. An only child. Now his mother, whom I know through church, is mired in the personal hell through which Jeff and I traveled seven years ago.

Within a few days the mother sent word that she wanted to talk with me. I knew why.

One day in 1973, tired of arguing with people about his beliefs and actions, John Francis stopped speaking. His silence lasted for 17 years.

Francis had already earned a reputation as a bit eccentric by the time he decided that talking didn’t serve his goals. Two years earlier, after the collision of two tankers in San Francisco Bay caused a massive oil spill, he had stopped using all forms of motorized transportation. Occasionally he biked or sailed, but mostly he traveled on foot as a form of environmental protest. He called himself the Planetwalker.

But what was the point, people would ask.