Why couldn't she have made it all the way to the end with the same gentle grace
and wisdom that had characterized her life? I sit now with my hand in hers and think about that day when I knew even then that it was the beginning of the end.
“Look! Look!” she had screamed. “Over there! The far wall! Those
ants! An army of them! Climbing to the ceiling! Oh, get them, get them!
Please get them!”
“Where? Where, Mother?” I had asked, as frantic as she.
But there had been no ants. No ants at all.