Twangs

I was just looking at a web site which offered the names of designers and others who are aware of, and sensitive to, the general precepts of the 'Not So Big House' concept. One caught my eye, but I couldn't imagine why -- they're not even in my state, but rather headquartered in Damariscotta, Maine. I've been to Maine several times, but never there.

And then I remembered. That's where the hospital is located in which my friend, Marion, died.

I don't think of her often, but when I do, it is frequently because I've glanced at a picture of her that I have on my wall at the office. We were in the hospital where she lived for the last full week of her life. I and her husband had brought her down to a sitting area, in a wheelchair. Moving her was a two-person operation -- I pushed the chair, and her husband manipulated the morphine IV drip and its associated paraphernalia. She asked to see a new car that he had bought, and while we were waiting for him to bring it around so that she could see it from the window, I took her picture. She is wan and drawn, leaning slightly on the arm of the wheel chair, and wearing a faded hospital gown, with a plastic barf-basin held ready on her lap. Yet she has a slight grin just the same, as she did during most of the time that I knew her. She was a sexy, smart, whimsical woman, and I miss her.

The picture is on my wall to remind me that there is more to life than work...