I would have preferred to tell you myself, sitting in that chair by the window where we used to read together.
I would have preferred to watch your face.*
I had to stop.
I knew that chair.
The one beside the east window of her room.
The one where I had sat every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon for nearly two years.
The one where she had held my hand the week before she passed and said, *You have no idea how much these visits have meant to me.*
I pressed the letter flat against my knee and kept reading.
*I did not choose you because you were kind, though you were.
I did not choose you because you were patient, though you were that too.
I chose you because of your birthday.
Because of the name of the town on your volunteer application.
Because when I looked at your face the very first day, I saw something I had not seen in fifty years.*
