The lady packed her ethereal trunks...

...and sometime on Wednesday morning drew her last troubled breath. She was a wide eyed girl at 83, always smiling and gracious, even when lucidity finally betrayed her and she couldn't remember why she was smiling. I got to take care of her for a while, greeting her almost casually at our first meeting. She was placid and friendly, and you'd never know how very sick she was. She talked about how the leaves would turn soon and wondered out loud what was for lunch. Who could've known our lives would become intertwined in a few short weeks?

The bright blue eyes and puckered Irish face are peaceful now. She attended her own wake down in New Orleans this Thursday. Then onto a memorial service in her adopted suburb of Belle Chasse. Finally, like the fallen Lincoln touring the country from the dignity of his Pullman car, Miss Charlene rolled into East Texas to her own ancestral resting place.