I used to volunteer at a nursing home .

I would sign in at the front desk and then walk from room to room with my infant daughter, chatting with anyone who wanted to talk to a visitor.

One day, I wandered into the full care wing of the building. I usually didn’t go there, because most of its patients were suffering from advanced dementia.

A woman was lying in her bed with her eyes open, so I decided to say hello and see if she was responsive.

I remember her window faced west, and the afternoon sun was streaming into her room. Her scraggly white hair, spread out on the pillow around her, shone like a halo.

“Is it you?” she asked, in a gravelly whisper.

“Yes,” I said.

“I knew you’d come.”

“I’m here.”

“I’m sorry for all that happened,” she said, before her voice dropped to a low whisper and I couldn’t catch her words. She concluded with, “I always knew you’d come back to me.”

I wondered who she thought I was.

“Is that my grandchild?” she asked.

Ah.

“Yes,” I said, lifting up my fat, smiling baby for her to see.

“She looks like a good one!” 

“She is.”

I let her stroke my daughter’s face.

“I’ll see you again soon,” the woman said, and I told her, “Of course.”

But when I went back the next week, her room was empty. An aide told me she had died.

I never knew her name.

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For an interview with Lisa about her writing with Reuters, see here.