A Very Nice Lady

A week and a half ago, I started having abdominal discomfort--bloating, cramping, moments of nausea and an altered appetite.  I laid it off to constipation till I didn't eat all day then threw up all night, followed by 3 days of liquid diarrhea.  With no insurance, I worried I might have failed to recognize my diverticulosis flairing into itis until it was too late.  I went to liquids only  and a week in, started to feel a little better.  I actually went onto the front porch on day 7, and one of the many relatives I'd barely noticed coming and going at my neighbors house said hi. 

Then he asked, "did anyone tell you that my grandmother passed 4 days ago". 

I was unprepared for him saying that.  We are in a pandemic and she was in her 80's and had been so out of touch with anything but my own bellyache, that I hadn't read the stream of cars with no sign of the actual homeowner.

I asked,  expecting covid and hearing a story about a chronic hernia suddenly becoming deadly, surgery, and a failure to recover. 

I had seen this story play out repeatedly while working in ICU.  It's not your usual hernia repair, but far from unheard of.  It is why hernias can't be ignored. 

I felt rather self-involved to hear of her death so late.

I only met her a year ago, and she was a busy, social person and I was a busy unsocial person, but we had greeted each other and spoke of perhaps sharing a cup of coffee.  I learned a few things, she had lived their 20 years when I moved in and my new garage had a pallet floor the whole 20 years she had been there.  I was shocked the termites hadn't taken it to the ground.

She had also moved there single, her spouse had died the year after my own divorce. 

She had maintained well for over thirty years on her own, and felt like I was seeing my own future.  Hoping.  Hoping I was doing as well as she at her age.

I spent two days after that new knowledge, looking out the window at her house.
Where is her cat?
She just planted some flowers.
Who will buy it now?

It's silent, the backyard dark.
The car doesn't move.

One white rose is still waiting in its bucket to be planted.

My granddaughter and I met her the day I first moved in.  My granddaughter pronounced her a very nice lady.

I will miss her reading her newspaper on the backporch.