Jean

She was a part-time driver where I worked, and she would come in as necessary when we were swamped. "I live just down the road," she would say; "if you need me, just call me."
She appeared to have had a difficult life, and it made her attitude pessimistic toward the world and life in general. "Don't get old, your children leave, you have aches and pains, and no one cares." she would tell me. "Just don't get old. Me, I'm old as dirt."
For some reason she took a liking to me, she called me her daughter, saying at first that I was the only teenager she knew who could be quiet. "Daughter!" she would call and wrap her arms around me, causing quizzical looks among our co-workers. "I haven't seen ya in a while! Hey, tell me if your parents ever want to be rid of ya, I'll adopt ya." She lived alone with her cat.
She needed some one to reach out to her; and I could have been that some one...
She died suddenly last week after surgery. She is gone, and I could have been there for her, but I wasn't.
It makes me look at the world differently, how do I know what is ahead? Who could need me? Who is there for me to reach out to? Life is a breath, it is given, and we never know when it may be taken away... and sometimes we remember this too late.
Maybe the last thing Jean did helped me to open my eyes more to the world around me. She would like that.