Old with young

But like everything Kelly did, she died in style, with no fanfare, no burden on anyone. Just days after Kelly's 58th birthday, I had the dubious pleasure of calling her mother and telling her that her son was gone. she had been working in a Midwest city for about six months, spending three or four days a week there. she had come home for her birthday because Kelly and I always had a 'special' birthday party. Then she left and said she wouldn't be back until the project was finished, which could take up to a month. Four days later when she didn't show up for a meeting, her client checked on her at her hotel and they found her. she had apparently gone to bed as usual, and some time through the night her heart had simply stopped. At her mother's request, we took Kelly back to Moncton to be buried next to her father. Through the whole procedure I hardly saw or heard anything. I never cried, I think I was too stunned. In my mind I saw playing over and over, like an old movie, a beautiful thirteen year old with a voice croaking between soprano and baritone as she came bounding into the classroom as I was leaving. Little did I know then that as beautiful as she was externally, I hadn't seen anything of her real beauty till I'd got to know her. I felt guilt and remorse for the life he'd lived, because of me. she could have had a family, or a lover, a full time lover that is, but she refused to leave me. she assured me over and over that she had the best she could ask for; but how many others would have settled for the life she led? I was the one who drank; I was the one who smoked. I was the one who had diabetes, who had a long family history of heart disease. And yet old with young was Kelly who died first.