Friday – Life on the Body Farm

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the conversation I had with Leslie's husband, Wren, two Sundays ago. He called me out of the blue to tell me he'd gotten the card and the letter I'd sent, and to thank me for them. He'd received it weeks before, but had only gotten around to reading it that day. He thought it was very nice of me. He said he knew why Leslie liked me so much.

"You know," he said in his slow Tennessee drawl, "you were one of her happy spots. She kept everything you ever sent her, and she'd read it over and over. She'd read it to me over and over. She say, 'Hey, here's something she wrote that I didn't notice before, listen to this,' and she'd read me whatever you'd written."

I don't think I've been called a happy spot before. Mentally, I kicked myself for not writing to her more often. She was the last person in North America not to have email, or even a computer, so writing her meant engaging in the somewhat archaic ritual of addressing and envelope and dropping something in the mail. I usually wrote her a letter when I got one from her first, but I rarely sent her something just because. The last letter I sent was to go with some photos I was sending because I'd promised her I would, and I sat down and wrote a note to go with them.

( Rainbows that chase you, and sunlight from Heaven )