flown

Changed my mind - I do want to write this one little bit. I didn't realize how much this thing mattered to me until I had decided to go to bed without writing about it.


I came back from Virginia an entirely new woman. This is something I'll write about later.

Did anything happen while I was gone? Allie rolled her eyes toward me as if she were exhausted. "Um, yeah." She said.

"In Memory" said the little sign, framed and sitting on the table between the doors. There is always an "in memory" sign there, in respect to our most recent resident to pass away - to keep death from feeling so sudden and permanent in everyday life. To remind everyone that we don't forget someone just because they die. Ruth's floppy red hat hung on the frame, and I felt shocked by it, as if it were actually part of her person hanging there. I had never seen the hat out of context before, and it made me wish I had had a hundred more conversations with her, listened to and cherished whatever babble she presented me with as if it were a precious river of wisdom. Mr. Wilson died too, and Avanell, but their deaths stayed within the realms of what it is that I do as a profession. I just wasn't prepared for Ruth. She was dear to me.

The end.