As part of my work today, I cleaned out the home of a client, Maynetta, who has recently moved into an assisted living center. I had only met Maynetta once. She was over ninety years old. In her bedroom, she had a carved elephant that her son had brought back from Africa, the companion carving to an elephant I had found in a consignment shop in North Carolina.This extraordinary and obscure coincidence is really all that ties me to this woman.
When I arrived today, all the possessions that mattered to her and to her children had been removed. What was left upon my arrival was the strange odds and ends of an ordinary life--a jar of pickles in the fridge, yellowed Tupperware in the drawer, a 22 cent stamp, a layer of soft dust over the shelves... This was left by her front door. Leave a note.
"Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No solace in being an adult?"
~ Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
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