Everything – all of the smiles, all of the tears, all of the time – all of it, came to a head in one final scene. And, even afterwards, the people who were there could not completely agree on how it played out.

In some stories, there were no final words, no last rights. In these versions – of which there are now many – she slipped silently into death as though it were a warm bath – the transition hardly noticible. On minute, she was moving, and the next, a hardly discernable change had occured, which was death.

In other versions, the occasion was marked by much pomp and circumstance. Last words were carefully weighed. Goodbyes were said, but not tearfully. The time for that had long past. It was not so much a “Farewell…” as it was a “I’ll see you later.”

However, the room at the end of the hall was marked that day. And they all say – all of them, they all agree – that at the precise moment the last breath left her body, all of the clocks in the house stopped.