Jane

A whiff of cigarette smoke floated into my bedroom window. Not just any cigarette smoke, the smell of this smoke takes me back to a shipshape house across the road from a church. Jane is there sitting in her chair, rolling cigarettes. She blends two tobaccos and pinches a bit to add to the paper before she rolls it through the roller. 

I often think of Jane; the adventure we had rescuing the church from fire, the Scrabble we played, her kindness when I visited as a self-centred millennial unused to life outside my little world. She always fed me well and treated me like family.

She had never married and was an epitome of singleness done well, with her no-nonsense ex-navy-ness and quiet often unseen works of charity. She was a great example of a solid and practical Catholic. I hope I will be as good as she, when I grow up.

Requiescat in pace.