loss

In my mind's eye, I see his van in the driveway- is it silver or black or faded maroon?- and the question on her face as she pulls up to the house that I likely will never visit and would need a map to find.  I see her walking up steps that may or may not exist to the bedroom where he is but should not be.  I think of 911 and paramedics, rising panic and spreading alarm. 

I see her students, shocked silent in a classroom I haven't entered for years now.  I think about her kids. 


I haven't talked to her since last Fall when we spoke of students transferred from her to school mine and the money I was raising for LLS; money was tight she told me, but they'd already donated: "My husband has leukemia." 


It didn't kill him. 


But Wednesday night they went to bed, and Thursday morning she left early for a conference.   Thursday afternoon she decided to go home for lunch and discovered that she is a widow.  The universe is cold and cruel. Such a sudden loss wouldn't be any less sad of a story if the woman surviving it weren't someone I admire, a force for good who'd also been a help to me, but we all see the world through our own lenses, and I see a friendly face forever changed.