Death in Texas

I live in a retirement community. I am surrounded by old people. You would think I would be accustomed to people dying, yet this week I was saddened and shocked by two deaths.

Leona and Arlan rented the apartment next door to me two days before I rented mine. We moved in at the same time. Arlan was in poor health and never left the apartment. Leona, a tiny little woman, was constantly going down to the dining room to pick up trays for breakfast and lunch. We urged her to sit and eat with us, but she would not keep Arlen waiting.

Leona was always on the go, doing laundry, walking her beautiful collie (he looked like Lassie), and driving to Greenville once a week for lunch with ladies from her church. She was almost 90 and had the energy of a woman half her age.

For months I used her cart to carry my dirty clothes to the laundry room. When I finally bought my own cart, she said, “You didn’t have to do that. You could use mine any time.”

Six weeks ago she went to Baylor Hospital for tests. The biopsy revealed advanced, aggressive cancer. For the past month I’ve watched people going to and from Leona and Arlan’s apartment: sons, in-laws, grandchildren, many who loved her. When Leona and Arlan met, she was a young divorced woman with two sons; he was also divorced with two young sons. They raised the four boys together. They were married for 47 years.

She died this week. Now Arlan will have to go to a nursing home.

The day after Leona died, another resident learned that her granddaughter was murdered. The newspaper called it “a domestic dispute.” The grandmother is devastated. When she moved into this retirement home, the granddaughter helped with the move and stayed for two weeks to help her grandmother get settled.

The young woman who was murdered had a mixed up life, married and divorced twice, with two boys by the first marriage, a three-year-old daughter by the second.. While she went to vocational school, her baby was cared for by the paternal grandmother. The young woman completed her vocational training and found a job, but her ex-husband’s mother did not want to give up the little girl. The young woman got a court order and went to the home to pick up her child. She was met at the door by a man with a rifle. He pumped four bullets into her.

Even if she had been foolish and irresponsible at times, she did not deserve this death.

I mourn Leona. But she had a long life and a happy second marriage. The young woman’s second marriage ended violently leaving three children without a mother. Life is full of ironies. And so is death.