Gone and gone again she lays still in peaceful sleep. Through layers of soft earth to a single large stone to mark her presence in a world that has forgotten.

In youth, in dreadful imagination, I ask myself how things would be without her.

In present day, in present mind that answer lies harshly revealed. Death did not come quick and sudden as it does to many. Death did not run, or jog or walked, it drug it’s feet, crawled and took from her piece by tiny, insignificant piece until nothing of her that was recognizable was left.

And then, unjustly, cruelly, as the last of her was emptied. Only then did death come.

I no longer need to ask myself in sudden despair of the clock strike, asking what life would be if she left.

She is already gone.