HEIDI JONES               I first met Heidi, with her husband, Harry, at the beach house of neighbors on Puget Sound, Hal and Marjorie Mitchell. Somewhere in the blur of that memory there was a decision to go sailing. I think that the intent was to find a place to moor Harry’s classic yacht for the winter.              Heidi, Harry and I went set out in my boat, “Say Yay!” As I remember it the wind was building a bit, but not seriously. The boat heeled a bit. Harry stepped down into the cabin where he watched with guarded hope while Heidi enjoyed the whole event. She trusted my promise that the boat wouldn’t tip over.             There was a time when Harry thought we should call to have the car sent around to retrieve us. I promised to take us home without so much heeling, which we did. Heidi loved it.              I don’t remember the timing, but at some point Heidi asked whether I would be willing to take her mother’s (Mutti) cremated ashes out onto the water for scattering. A neighbor arranged for the search and rescue boat to take us out. We had some brief words and committed Heidi’s mom’s ashes to the sea, then laid a floating wreath of roses on the spot.              Back on shore, we all gathered for a wonderful meal of lasagna that Heidi provided, perhaps the best I ever had.             On Saturday, June 30, my duty was to do the same for Heidi, this time from the deck of Harry and Heidi’s classic sailing yacht.             I was fortunate to have some chapters from a draft of her autobiography in the week previous to the ceremony. It is one of the more moving things I have read in a long time. The chapters I read tell of the life of a teen-age girl in Germany from 1941 until the end of WW II in 1945.              Heidi’s story is all the more dramatic because of her international childhood. Before ending up in Germany she had already had touch with America, Japan, China, and Russia. She was multi-lingual. In addition she was a practicing Roman Catholic and descendent of a part-Jew.              Her family’s attempts at survival, their separations, her being drafted into German service (ultimately ending up with the Red Cross), and her near-miss escapes from rape and abuse by the Russian liberators, are hair raising and appalling.             Her story let us see the war on the European front in a far different way than we saw it by way of newspapers and radios at the time. It also reveals what an awful price war extracts from people involved. It reminded me of Anna Frank’s story. WW II took up all her teen years. She never was a “typical teen-ager.” When at last she is reunited with her Papa and Mutti, her first tearful words were, “Papa, I was not raped. Thank God. I was not raped.” The horror, fear, terror behind those words tells a story of teen-age life as it should never have had to be. “Ashes to ashes,” I said. “Dust to dust. We commend to the seas, international water, the mortal remains of Heidi Jones, as we commend to eternity her memory and spirit that will never, ever die.” The engines of the two boats were silenced, as were we all, watching the flowers spread over that sacred spot.   - July 2001 -