In time I came to see I was wrong to call Felicia peaceful. We’d been staring into the still surface of a lake when I impulsively compared it to her. She’d swung around to face me, a mysterious smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

“Really?” she’d said, and I remember being amazed that such a small word could contain so much inside of it. I realize now that she’d seen my really very innocent comment as a challenge. But then her next response took my breath away.

She jumped into the lake. I remember how hard she laughed as she surfaced, long hair plastered against her head, shirt ballooning around her. She looked waterlogged and messy. I’d never seen her look more beautiful.

Now she sits in the small room where she lives in the ALF , her memories stolen by something they call Alzheimer’s. Her blue eyes are now cloudy, no longer the clear, deep waters I knew. After nearly half a century together I realize how I was wrong to call her peaceful. Unpredictable would’ve been a better word. Beautiful the best.