For Dorreen

She didn't walk so much as glide. It was a thing to behold. You don't see such elegance anymore.

I adored her. A simple love like I have never had before or since. She moved me, to quote some singer named Paul.

God, how I wanted to be like her.

She was sheer magic.

Who else do you know gives a stranger $100 just because he claimed he'd been robbed? Yes, of course he had been robbed. Yet, 6 weeks later, she received an envelope with $120 and a note thanking her for her kindness? My God, who else but her? Sheer magic.

Who else could speak to me without saying a word? She did. Magic.

Even at the inevitable end.

When things were on a downwards spiral, she still spoke to me.

Without words.

She begged me to just "let her go." "Everything will be alright," she said, if I just "let her go."

Oh, how I sobbed.

How could I let go of the woman who taught me magic?

Who taught me empathy, sympathy for the human race?

That every animal was to be loved, regardless.

That to hurt another would come back on me three fold.

Who taught me how to be a woman.

I think of her when I see a stranger in need.

As I love my "un-lovable" animals.

Especially when I speak, without words, to my own daughter.

How could I just "let her go?"

But let her go I did.

Let her go I had to.

"Let me go" I will someday ask my own daughter.

Isn't that what we all have to do?

Just let go.

She will remember me,

she will remember her,

she will remember us.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

Sheer magic.