Playing Fair and Being Kind

All Grace wanted was the spring rolls from Baker’s Way. Spring rolls with the duck sauce. Two. I said I would deliver them to her. She lay dying in bed unable to travel at all becaues she had stage four lung cancer. She was exhausted. We’d talk a bit on the phone, not long. We liked each other a lot. We had made a deal to be good friends. No hanky-panky.

We talked and hung out together for a few years I think. I can’t remember when we began walking together and having lunch. Once or twice a movie. But we just were comfortable sitting and idly talking about various things that were important only in the moment.

Grace could turn wood. She had a wood turning lathe in her basement. Grace could do many things uncommon to women. I can’t list them but once in a while she would tell me a story that would reveal a secret skill she had and never talked about. Grace was a prize friend. She had been a farmer. This was after she’d been a nurse and then she’d become a school teacher. Grade school. You know, each time she told me she’d done something or other I’d be surprised but in a short time I’d be able to accept what she did as unsurprising. She was that way. She was a renaissance person. Something like a Leonardo Da Vinci. 

Grace and I spoke on the phone and planned to have two spring rolls with duck sauce sometime in the next week but she was always too tired and had to conserve what energy she had to be able to be with her daughter and grandson Conner. I always told her not to worry about our visit because it was more important to visit with family. I could always go visit her anytime so we didn’t have to be concerned about when. We just knew we would.

We never got to visit and eat the spring rolls. Grace died and it was just so sad. I read about it in the Register. The obituary was very nice. It told all about the good ways she’d lived her life. Nothing about the wood turning though. Grace was a prize friend.  I think of her once in a while and the thoughts are always mellow and simple and gentle. I miss you, Grace. I’m sure a lot of people do.

Gentle George
February 9, 2020