Language Change

Maybe one day I'll stop having to remember to add "would have been" when speaking of my late parents' birthdays, but on this second birthday after my mother's death that day hasn't arrived.
In the photo she's twelve. It's February of 1943 and the man she's looking at is her big brother who is a Marine fighter pilot during the war. Later, he would fly early jets in Korea, fighter bombers. He was an excellent pilot and taught others to fly. One he taught was so good that my uncle made him his wing man: Ted Williams, the baseball player. The two were friends for life.
My uncle died in November of 2011, just a few weeks after my mother.