A Yellow Blanket for Frances

We visited Frances on Saturday.

We got there while she was sleeping, sleeping hard with long breaths in and out. The sheets and blankets over her went up and down. We found two chairs and sat to wait for her.

As she woke, she looked up at the faces and around at the room. It took her a while to get reoriented. But when they told her that Trudy had come, her eyes opened wide, and a bright smile crept across her face.

Her Trudy had come to visit her.

She sat with her, talking some, sitting some, holding hands, scratching itches, running a cool rag across her forehead. And when Frances told Trudy that she was cold, Trudy smiled and reached for a package beside the bed.

Here is a present I brought for you, she said, pulling a yellow fleece blanket from the tissue in the bag. And here is a yellow card to go with it. Merry Christmas, Frances. She laid the blanket over Frances's feet.

With the blanket on top and someone to talk to, Frances cheered up. As afternoon came, she was smiling and joking and speaking of horny-toads. She even tried to eat some soup. But evening came, and we had to go. So we hugged her and kissed her and squeezed her hand goodbye.

When her family visited later that night, Frances told them how Trudy had come, and she showed them the bright yellow blanket that Trudy had brought. And she kept the blanket over her that night.

Frances died early Sunday morning.

I didn't know her; I had only met her once before. But I saw the love she had for Trudy and the love Trudy had for her. And when the pall bearers unpinned their white carnations and laid them on her casket, the world felt like an emptier place.

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