This is how I’m starting the Designer’s Notes. I liked it so much that I figured I’d share it here.

On July 19, 2003, at 11:30 p.m. EDT, my mother passed away. It was a shock to all of us. She was not ill; she had shown no indication of any problem. She was working outside that afternoon and, around 2:00 p.m., was stung by a bee. She wasn’t feeling well and called my sister Elizabeth. While on the phone, she collapsed. My sister hurried over and found her unconscious. The paramedics could not revive her and, after several hours spent in intensive care, she died. She was only 51 years old.

That wasn’t the first time that death had entered my life. In the first six months of 1997, five people who were close to me suddenly passed away. Among them was my Grandpa Anderson and my Grandma Ben-Ezra. Cancer took them both.

Nor was it the last. In 2006, I helped bury Hannah, the three-year old daughter of a co-worker, dead from a congenital disease. A week later, I stood at the grave of William, a sixteen-year old boy from my church, dead from brain cancer.

These are just some of the griefs that I bear, the flowers that I carry for Mara. Writing this game is part of how I am putting them down.