a friend for a season (haibun)

I waited for both children to be in school before making some life changes. I started to volunteer making friendship visits to isolated or terminally ill residents in my community; there was one eighty-eight year old widow, Mrs.Darby who used to teach at my children’s school. She was frail suffering from Emphysema and lonely. One day she called me to get her a loaf of bread. When I arrived at her home with the bread, her next door neighbour was just leaving her home having also dropped off a litre of milk. I chuckled at how cunning she was to insure a visit.
She was a delightful lady. We would spend hours talking about how she used to personally sew her Grade 2 students’ outfits for concerts; one evening we spent hours looking over her Christmas baking recipes. Hearing her talk about her years teaching gave me the idea to invite her to my children’s Christmas recital. There was a snowstorm that day, but we still managed to get to  the school.  I watched her face glow when she saw the children performing on stage.  After the assembly, it was such a treat to see so  parents and even some grandparents walk up to greet their former Grade 2 teacher. It was priceless to see the joy on Mrs. Darby’s face…

happenstance
together on the same path
for a season,
a last farewell gift
before finding the light

© Tournesol ’16/02/16

Carpe Diem’s Theme Week #1 The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, an introduction