The River Wife by Jonis Agee

"She also began to write the story of her life beginning with the earthquake, because it seems after Chabot's passing that we die so suddenly, without a final reckoning, slipping quickly from memory, that without children who continue us, we cease, become as common as dirt trampled beneath the feet of travelers. She could not stand the idea, so she wrote to give evidence of their lives for that brief moment."