Each year, we would produce a video as a birthday gift for Roxie. We would simply add more to the previous year’s video so that she could see how she was growing, evolving, becoming a strong, kind, compassionate, happy, funny, nice, persistent young girl. Our agony has prevented us from producing her 6th birthday video — but we’ll make it happen soon enough. Here’s birthday #5.

Oh how Roxie loved the sea. She was at home in the foamy, salty surf under a magnificent blue marble sky. This was Roxie’s final experience tempting the ebb and flow of the Pacific. A small summer camp pool swallowed her whole, along with the unconscionable negligence of adults who failed to care for her in the most basic way — to look at her and make sure she did not drown. But she did drown. And this is all we have left.