a sad start to the 4th of July

Yesterday morning I was just letting Lola into the yard when I heard someone behind me. I turned around to see this little old lady running towards me with a huge smile on her face. I didn't recognize her and immediately thought that she must know my best friend and or/landlords. She started yelling, "there's my woman, there's my woman" over and over again. She ran up to me and grabbed my arm. I said hello as her husband briskly turned the corner into the side yard. He yelled for her, "Ruby, come on now we have to go home." She kept holding onto me and said, "this is my woman. I'm going home with her." I held onto her hand and started walking with her to the gate. I told her that she couldn't come home with me because I had a lot of chores to do but that she could go home with her husband. She finally took his hand and as she did, he looked at me with the saddest eyes and apologized as if there was actually something to apologize for. He had the clearest baby blue eyes, like my dad's in fact, and they were slightly marked by tears. They walked out onto the sidewalk and as I went into the house I thought I'd check out my front door and see how they were doing. I saw Ruby take off running down the street with her husband running after her. I put my shoes back on and went outside hoping maybe to help him. He finally caught her as she was distracted by the siren of an ambulance. I saw her husband look back at me from a block away and instantly I felt silly for watching them so I tried to turn sideways and hide behind a telephone pole. As I watched them walk away, hand in hand, a wave of sadness fell over me. I thought of my grandma who dealt with the same illness and was so thankful that my grandpa had not been around to see her like that. It was absolutely devastating.

I had been waxing and waning on going whitewater rafting, frankly because I was scared. I've decided that I'm going now. Ruby has reminded me to live and get the most out of life. Its ironic that I work with kids dying of cancer everyday and it took having a personal moment with Ruby to remember that life is a great adventure and we might as well live it up.