Around the turn-of-the-year, since I haven't visited the one resthome that I used to work at for a while and since the one resthome resident who used to give me candy didn't look too good on my last visit -- walker, oxygen, sitting a bit out-of-it in a chair when I arrived -- I look online for an obituary and I don't find one, so I jot her a note about how I hope that she's doing well, I had taken longer vacations to see my parents and for a conference and I hadn't had a chance to come by recently, etc. etc. etc., all very light and cheery, since who knows where she is, healthwise, and in big letters, too, so she can read it, and I throw it in the local mailbox like a block away from my house.
And, like a week after that, I pick up my mail and there's a medium-sized envelope that was delivered and sitting amidst my daily newspaper, and I pitch it on my kitchen table and I don't look at it closely until I get home that night from something, and then I look at the return address label and it's my old (white) (gay) (Midwestern) (retirement-age) coworker at the resthome, so I get a feeling that she died, especially since the envelope is large-ish, and I open it up, and right there is my returned letter and a card from him saying that she passed away a few months ago with her nephew and niece there, and he tucked in his Christmas newsletter about him and his partner.
And, I remember that I had phone trouble the very day that I last visited her, so I look it up on my phone, and the last date that I visited was exactly a year to the day that I got the letter from him, returning my letter and saying that she had died.
