The woman across the street died today. It was not a surprise. She has been fighting breast cancer for the last couple of years, actively dying for the past couple of months. Over the past two weeks all of her children have come home, her grandchildren, the driveway and street littered with visitors coming with food and drink, staying a little while to pass the time with her and as much as I’ve always maintained that I don’t want a slow death there is something to be said for this, a wake while still alive.

Today the ambulance came, no lights or sirens. They took their kits in, but no stretchers, and the next car to come was from the funeral home. They don’t use hearses anymore, not for removals. Too disturbing for people, I guess, for our people, anyway, here in America where death is a four-letter word. The dead are carried out to mini-vans that come in any color but black and we avert our eyes from the brightly-colored quilts that now cover what’s left of their earthly remains so as to not be reminded of our own mortality.

I did not know her very well, the woman across the street. They moved here to be closer to better care for her husband, a quadriplegic. It is ironic, of course, that she went first, but those decisions are rarely in our own hands. She was kind, and curious, always asked after A., who played with her own grandkids when they visited. Even a couple of weeks ago she still looked herself, if a little weaker. She must have gone downhill quickly, but stayed long enough to say goodbye.

Maybe I would have wanted that time after all.