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11/12/2004: "Fair Well"

Hundreds came to see Mrs. Gummidge off, and I was the last one to see her. It was a nasty, cold, wet morning; I turned on the lights and the heat and opened the doors and they came. We hugged each other and laughed and cried and remembered. We heard again, as we had at her dear friends service, how they had gone to Washington and been arrested in the Capitol rotunda, protesting the secret funding of the contras. Her family went to the church parlor after and her admirers went over to pay their respects. I went out to the cemetery and got my wheelbarrow out from behind the brick wall. It was half-full of muddy waters. I took the brass cover off the hole, and lifted out the box. Her name, two dates. Alpha and omega. I put it back and shovelled mud in over it. Goodbye.