Vignettes from the Road

Thursday morning I was lying awake in bed pretending to be asleep but actually contemplating the meaning of illness when My Beloved came upstairs. He quietly leaned his face close to my ear and without attempting to wake me said softly "Hazel died this morning." My Beloved called her virtually every morning. Usually before seven. He liked to catch her before she left her room for breakfast. Wednesday she hadn't wanted to stay on the phone saying she didn't feel well. On this morning it was a nurse who answered her phone. They had discovered her dead at 6:30. The nurse had been calling all the contact numbers she had for Hazel's kin but no one was answering so it happened that Craig was the first to know. It seems fitting that it should be so since they were so dear to one another. I'm grateful he got the news from a caring nurse and not from some hostile relative. It seems more private. More personal. More about Hazel and less about people and their games. For the next little while I will be telling you little stories from the road. The road to Jonesboro and the road of Hazel's life.