Home in the Himalayas

My cousin Norma, then in her teens, helped take care of my sister Veronica and me in India when our mother, Norma's Aunt Kitty, died soon after my birth in the early 1940s. Months later, Dad, an American, took Veronica and me to the States, and years later, Norma and her family emigrated to England.

I never saw Norma again, but in 2002 we found each other through other family members and often visited back and forth on the phone and with letters and emails.

Norma was homesick for the Himalayas, where she'd been born and had lived much of her life, but chronic health issues kept her from returning.

I was deeply moved that when she passed away several years ago, her grandson and other members of her family living in England returned Norma to her beloved Himalayas, placing her ashes in the mountains she loved so much.

The sticks in the second photo are poles for Buddhist prayer flags, as seen in the third photo.