Lasting Impressions

Once a patient of mine wisely stated, "We aren't put here to stay," so it isn't like we expect people to live forever. But I was saddened this week when I read of the "passing" - as it is said now - of a friend of mine from another place and time. I have thought often of Fran through the years, when I place the ornament she made on the Christmas tree, when I make the casserole I first ate at her house, and I always thought of her when I cooked rice for my old dog, because she did it for hers. She may not even have remembered that she did any of those things, but it is what I took from her. She was a good woman. When we are younger, we watch and learn from other women, especially those a little older as she was, and some of those practices become our own. We don't know when we will see someone for the last time, but pieces of many people who have passed through our lives come to reside and remain in us.