aging

One of my childhood memories is of working on a profile drawing of my grandfather, while he played cards with the grownups one summer evening. I think I was in fifth grade.


Now when I teach my students - all elderly - I study their faces and hands. I want to draw them.


For now I grab moments when the class is contented, and quickly sketch. So much experience and feeling in their faces. This is Edith, one of my best students when I started. She had painted all her life and did such delicate work.



Then she began to forget, grew angry. The last time I saw her she asked "Have I done this before?" She missed the next three classes. I'm just the art teacher, but I'd come to love her. I wonder where - and how - she is.