Picture is not the actual lady.
At first glance, I didn’t know she was dead. I was two driveways away from being home after a long day of graduate school classes. My car was a convertible and the heat of a Mississippi summer was wearing on me. The air-conditioned townhouse which my wife and I rented would be a welcome reprieve.
My first reaction when I saw her was, “Just keep driving. You didn’t see anything.” When my conscience caught up with reality and informed my heart, I knew I needed to pull over.
She was lying face down in her yard donning a robe over her night gown. The water hose was running just feet away creating a puddle in the St. Augustine and running over the curb into the road. When I bent down to feel for a pulse, I saw the ants starting to gather near her gray hair line on her temples. How had no one seen her before now? Clammy skin. No pulse. No breath.
Cell phones were scarce in 1994. The fastest and closest phone I knew was my stuck-in-the-early-eighties neighbor. Shirtless, per usual, he came to the door. After briefing him, he turned his dark-mulleted head and baby-oiled tanned body in the direction of the phone and dialed 911. We waited on the lawn standing over someone’s grandmother unsure of what to say or do.
Ten minutes later the EMT’s pulled up and confirmed our assessment. She was indeed dead.
I never got her name. I did not meet any family members. She was a lady in her yard enjoying watering the daisies she would soon be pushing up.