Go Ask Alice

She hasn't been gone a week, and I already miss her much. Alice died last Friday, or was Thursday, no one seems to know for sure. Autopsy pending.

Alice was a human dynamo. One of America's "greatest generation". I hate that term, but you know what I mean. Child of the Depression, World War II youth. She about 100 pounds soaking wet. I think it was because she never sat still. She was a farm wife and after husband died a few years back, a farmer. She ran the place. Did all the stuff that the men do. Her hands showed it. Rough and knarled with age. But you would never know it to look at her.

Alice had bright red hair and a smile that was even brighter. She would come into my office and lighten up the place especially when the sun wasn't shining. If the sun was out...so was Alice. She never stayed put. Go go go.

She was the heart and the soul of our community. They are going to make a park for her with a gazebo. She would like that. They say it's to remember her by, but who could ever forget her. She was always the first one on the scene of any community project. "How can I help you? What do you need?" Those words seemed to be her motto.

She never slowed down, but would always stop to lend a hand or speak a kind word. So wise. Salt of the earth.

She was found on her farm. No one knows how long she had been there. Found by a nieghboring farmer. They looked for foul play, but there doesn't appear to be any. Alice was always there for others, so why did she have to die alone? I take comfort in knowing that she was in the place that she loved the most. Her farm, that land, that earth that she was the salt of.

We are all going to miss her so much. I 'm not sure they make them like that anymore. So the next time, when someone needs to know something...what are we going to do when before it was so easy just to ...Go ask Alice.

Rest in Peace my friend. You've earned it.