This is what I said at the funeral, basically:

Most of you know Dorothy as the fantastically unique, wonderful person that she was. But I must confess: for the first twenty years of my life, she was simply my mom. I was aware that she was unique, and wonderful, but she was also the person who told me to do my laundry and to make sure and be home by midnight.

This changed dramatically for me in the spring of 1998, when I saw Chasing Wild Geese. I knew my mom had been laboring painstakingly to produce this dance, but I wasn’t ready for what I saw, in a certain fashion. She had put her choreography on hold shortly before I became self-aware, and so I knew of it only through her stories, and from the many event posters we had in our photo albums.

My mom made her first appearance in Chasing Wild Geese about halfway through the performance. Her dancers were dressed primarily in a “basic” costume: black pants and a colored t-shirt. In one scene, they pranced around one another in an interlocking blend of nursery-rhyme allusions, while reciting mashed-up bits of Mother Goose rhymes. In the middle of this organized frenetecism, my mom erupted through the backstage curtain, dressed like a homeless woman and pushing a shopping cart. She had a perfectly tuned wild-eyed look to her as she mocked the other dancers, aping her own choreography with amazing ironic precision and panache.

It was then that I realized that this wasn’t just my mom. This was an artist of the highest caliber and consummate skill. In this instant, I realized that many, many of the facets of her personality — the things I considered part of fundamental “mom-ness” — were, in fact, powerful expressive forces to be reckoned with. It was an epiphany; like being unblinkered… so many things that I didn’t know were even there were now in sharp focus.

I wanted to share this because I know she has done this for many of you. We can see things much better, because of her. She taught us how to see, in many ways, and that is the most valuable and amazing lesson one can be taught.

Thank you.

Anyway. Hard one to talk about, to the internet at large. But I’ll say that my friends have been absolutely excellent and wonderful during this time. If I haven’t spoken to you personally, I do apologize… everything has been utterly fucking crazy, as you might perhaps think. Will be back later with more design stuff, probably. It’s hard, though, because I really miss my mom. She was the best there is, no hyperbole. Yes.

-fish