Remembering Kit

Oct. 3 was Kit Carsson's birthday,
and in her memory, I want to recount
something she once told me:

It was a winter night, and Kit had to
run out to the pharmacy to get something
for the pain her life-partner, Leah, was
suffering from that night.  It was very cold,
and Kit wanted to quickly get the medicine
and then get back into their snug bed.

Two steps out the door, and Kit slipped on
the ice, landed on her back in the snow and
hit her elbow especially painfully, but she
got up, ran her errand, brought Leah her
pain medicine and climbed back into bed
with her.  Her elbow was killing her, but
Kit never told Leah what happened.

But she lay awake wishing that somehow
Rachel could know what had happened to
her that night, how she lay in the snow a
few seconds even in the bitter cold, thinking
"If only Rachel could see me now.  If only
she could know what I'm going through."

That night Kit hardly slept, dwelling on how
little Rachel knew of her life, of the small things
like a few moments lying on the frozen ground
on a windy night, wishing that her Rachel of the
Windows, as she always called her to me, were there
see what she was going through and to be seen back.

R