She died early on Sunday.

The nurses wanted to empty the bed fast, so they moved her to a shed in the back of the old hospital. This is where we found her, lying on a trolley, covered with a white sheet.

She looked quiet, almost smiling. Her face did not carry that look of pale death, it was still pink and alive. Her hair was combed. Her nightgown was clean. She wasn’t going out of this world in a mess.

I remembered her as she was many years ago. She was average, not very caring, and almost always a bit distant as if she were occupied with thoughts she never cared to share with others. She had lost all her opportunities, one after another. She had married badly. She had missed an education. She had no friends to speak about other than the ephemeral acquaintances she made through her job as a music teacher. Her life, as a bottom line, possessed nothing intriguing or interesting, the stuff books are written about.

As she lay on that trolley, she looked almost relieved.

She had finally made an exit ….