My alternate early life in Monrovia, CA

I was a blond baby, a towhead. It wasn’t just the baby years either, that blond hair lasted into my toddler years and beyond. This however, is not a photo of me—although it looks a lot like my mom when she was just a little girl.
The photo appeared on our fridge one winter’s day. Andrew bought it because to him it looked like me—a girl happy to be outside—the California kid version, if I’d grown up somewhere with palm trees (there are no palm trees in Eastern Washington). What he didn’t know is that at that age I was all dresses all the time. I refused to wear pants. Funny now I haven’t worn anything but pants in at least 10 years… The back of the post card. I think it says “Monrovia 25ft high”. So, in my alternate California life perhaps I live in Monrovia, CA, with my 25 ft tall opuntia tree?
Today is Memorial Day here in the USA, what my grandparents used to call Decoration Day because it was the day you decorated the graves of your loved ones (I know for many it's about military dead but that's not how I understood the day growing up). Andrew and I will be making a trip home to Spokane soon—finally an opportunity to see my parents, after COVID has kept us apart for more than 18 months. Sadly it will also be an opportunity to memorialize, and bury my mother's brother, my Uncle Har who we lost last month. He wasn't a COVID casualty but because of COVID we weren't able to see him after our visit of December 2019. Hug your loved ones, you just never know.