I was in the garden when the ambulance pulled up.
I had seen the elderly woman across the way. The one living in the blue trailer with the brown shutters. She's probably lived there for a long time. There's a poor excuse for a rose bush at the trailers end showing sometime, someone had cared. I'm sure it was her.
In the fall, on those warm days with brilliant blue skies, I would see her with her walker going to the mailbox. Her back was bowed, her body small. Her hands gripping the handles firmly exposing her long, long fingers, still elegant. Her face full of determination, her head held high. Proper, raised in an age gone by. My husband spoke to her several times and her statement was always, "the weather is beautiful."
The paramedics went in then quickly returned to their carriage of horrors. They pulled out their gurney. I was sure she had died then I saw them carrying her down the bare wood steps in what appeared to be a chair. So small she was. Her hair splayed, her skin pale, she held her head up straight.
After a time of seeing no one at her home their appeared several cars. They seemed to come and go quickly although I did not see anyone take in anything or bring anything out. An odd experience, to be sure. Activity has died at the rusty blue trailer across the way. I don't know about the lady.
