It's all coming back to me now.

Last spring, when Dorothy learned that the wedding was changed from  October  to an earlier date in May, she was happy.  "I should be able to make it,"  she said, undoubtedly sensing that time was drawing to a close, and October seemed so far away.  But May----just around the corner and brimming with hope and promise.   So we went shopping for the occasion.  She already had the centerpiece of her  outfit, a beautiful and expensive sequined jacket she had bought as soon as the engagement was announced, almost a year before.  She needed a blouse to accessorize her outfit, so off we went to JCP.  I was her driver that day, having gone to her house to pick her up, as she was not  quite trusting her driving abilities.  We spent the weekend in Valley Falls, and on the day of her return home, we stopped to shop, and then for lunch.  She must have tried on a dozen or more tops, shell, blouses, tank tops, suitable to wear under that special jacket.  I tired before she did  and sat waiting in the dressing room.  True to her shopping nature, she could not settle on one, but bought three tops, all on sale of course.  She would see which looked best with the jacket when she got home.  But calamity struck like a bludgeon, and so soon after what was to be the last shopping day of her life, she had to tell me that she would not be able to go to the wedding, even though only a few weeks away.  Dorothy was to have done one of the readings at the wedding, and she was so disappointed not to be in attendance.  We came up with an alternative;  Dave drove down to Dorothy's house and videotaped  her reading of the chosen passage, her dressed in what would have been her wedding outfit, and standing on her deck, with her flowers all in bloom with the earliest blossoms.  She looked great, and was joking and laughing at the inevitable flubs, but managed a flawless rendering of the chosen verse.
      At home, we all viewed the video, and I talked about it with her, telling her we presented it to the wedding couple.  Dave brought her a copy, and I remember what she said when I asked her what she thought of it.  She said she hadn't watched it:  she wasn't ready to see it, maybe later.    (Of all the people who I've ever known, she was the least likely to want to live her life in a passive way.  Not on a tape, filmed before, viewed after.  Her life was in the moment.