Lost: Two bedroom apartment and who I used to be

"She reminds me of another elderly lady who lived on the streets of Ashland, until one day she disappeared and nobody's seen her since. She's always layered up, and masked, but there's this feistiness in her eyes that makes me think of my old friend. She's the one who traveled cross country on foot and came back home a few weeks ago. I think she's in her mid to late 60's. Imagine that.

She spends most of her time on the outskirts of town, hunkered down, hiding in places where few people look. Now that she's gotten used to the meal schedule, she's waiting for us daily, and like a lot of people, she's there for a few minutes of company and attention, which is needed as much as her body needs the calories and nutrition. Nurturing that goes beyond food.

"Do you have any yogurt, or juice, or milk?," she asked Barbara Tricarico . We didn't have anything that would fill that request, but I remembered that Gina DuQuenne had given us some Safeway giftcards. I motioned her to follow me to my car and handed one to her. I told her she could walk to the store after she finished dinner and get whatever she needed. "Are you kidding?" Her face was flooded with joy and she enveloped me in the kind of hug that can carry you through the hardest day. "Thank you!"

So much to be grateful for. Thank you Troll Henderson Marian Spadone Pauline Black Jennifer Shaffer Bagshaw Amber Ferguson #Sammich Claire Clooney Neil Clooney Bird and Rye

Love in action." FROM February 2021

UPDATE: There's been a bevy of older ladies who have lost their housing and landed on the streets of Ashland. (Humor me for a moment, and let's examine the phrase "lost her housing", as though it's something like a lost pet, and she's put up missing posters all over town. My old life, everything I thought was forever," I imagine her saying.) I can picture her face, but my memory can't quite pull up what happened to her, or where she's gone. I get that a lot. I see the middle of a chapter, and sometimes I hear about how the story started, but I rarely get endings unless they're tragedies.