Thanks dialyn. That was the point of the story. It was driven by two events that I find fascinating and by the book our book club read last month, Passage - by Connie Willis. My father had an older brother that died of blood poisoning at the age of 20. They lived on a farm at the time, his brother was gravely ill, and my dad was sent out to collect the eggs. On the way back to the house he said that just as he got to the yard gate a gray wisp came out of the house down the path to the gate, got to him, and then veered up into the sky. He went into the house and was told his brother just died. And then when my mother-in-law died two years ago, in a hospital bed much like Charles', my father-in-law suddenly looked up towards the window, reached out and said "Goodbye Dori" as if he saw her there. Both very thought provoking instances, to my mind. jon

 
~jon
My Blog - Mad Utopia Writing in a new era.