Marie Taylor, Ink

She was a large woman and when younger would probably have been described as a strapping blonde. Everything about her was a little larger than life – from her big bones and big bosom to her big voice and big personality.

Now a widow in her sixties, she was visiting the family from whom I was temporarily renting a room. She appeared in the doorway of my bedroom unannounced and needing to talk. She veered off topic often, circling around and around the story of her life.

Last year she had moved to a small town in the foothills where she knew no one, then bought a three-bedroom house and filled it with brand new furniture. She soon found that no one came to visit, particularly the distant daughter who had a life of her own in a big city.

Now she was dissatisfied with her foothill retreat and after she drove back home would put the home on the market and the furniture in storage. But what next? Where to go, what to do? Mexico might be a good choice because money would go so much further. She would prefer Virginia but it was too far from the daughter who rarely visited. Oregon was too rainy, Arizona too hot, California too expensive.

She lived alone except for the small dog she was then holding in her arms, a silky terrier with big sad eyes. Today she was going to the vet because the dog had stopped eating and lost weight. She stroked it constantly as she spoke. The small dog’s eyes looked at me imploringly. Was it asking for rest from the incessant talking, for rescue from the restless hands?

Later that day she reported that the vet had diagnosed kidney failure and tomorrow, after her dental appointment, she said she would go to the vet and have her companion put down.

The next day, after her visit to the dentist and the vet, she stopped by the local animal shelter. She had gotten another small dog, she said, happily pulling a small floppy dog from her oversized tote bag for me to see.

The speed with which she replaced the dog that had given her so many years of companionship revealed the depth of her loneliness. Tomorrow she and her new companion would drive back to the small town of strangers in the foothills. It would learn to listen to her big voice, feel the need in her big hands and sleep beside her in the big new bed in the unwanted big house while the big wondered where to go and what to do with the rest of her life.