In memoriam: Gunna Leifs

I don't know exactly how to grieve for a woman I did not know very well, but whose goodness effected the lives of those I love profoundly. It helps that here in Iceland, I serve as my mother's ambassador, expressing her condolences when she cannot. But to occupy only that role diminishes my own personal grief, my own opportunity to understand what this lady meant to me. That her daughter, Elísabet, died just before my first trip to Iceland had some symbolic import, as if I were meant to fill the void she left. Today, when I told my mother about Guðrún dying, she said through heaving sobs, "She was like a second mother to me." And so it seems full circle. I only hope I can convey all of this to Leifur, her husband, and my mother's second cousin.