She was a patron saint of the peripheral.
Parents, however old they and we may grow to be, serve among other things to shield us from a sense of our doom. As long as they are around, we can avoid the fact of our mortality; we can still be innocent children.
A lot of people would rather tour sewers than visit their cousins.
New links must be forged as old ones rust.
Anthropology was the science that gave her the platform from which she surveyed, scolded and beamed at the world.