This year is the first birthday of my dear Auntie Raie since she passed from this world. She was my mother’s oldest sister. My godmother. The woman whose name I was given and therefore, in so many ways, the woman who stood quietly at the beginning of my own story. Every year on this day, without fail, I would ring her to wish her a happy birthday. It became a ritual of sorts ~ ordinary, faithful, never questioned. This year, the call lives only in memory, and I find myself sp