More Casseroles?

Here we are, once again on a Tuesday night. I showed up at your door bearing a thermos of soup and warm bread. An appreciative smile escapes from the crevices of your small bird-like eyes. We eat in an easy warm silence as always although I can tell you've grown weaker. Naturally, my left hand deftly shovels chicken and noodles into my mouth because my rights is reassuringly clutching yours. Soft and thin shiny skin covers brittle bones that still offer a promisingly firm grip. I want to cry, but I don't because tears are a scarce substance in my world. However I do wonder if a few of those salty droplets would altar the flavor of my soup. I haven't tasted much lately anyways and I know your taste buds haven't had the pleasure of tasting since 2003.
Seven years. Look how far you've made it. I can't say I'm happy for you, for I know there is somewhere else you would much rather be, but I am grateful. Grateful for you gracing us with your wisdom for seven more lonesome years. A lot can happen in seven lonesome years. A girl can become a woman, a house a home, and mourning a lifestyle.
An intrinsic characteristic of the lifestyle of mourning is one's relationship with photographs. Their memories become life-like companions in a drafty three-bedroom track house of a single inhabitant. There have been many times when I've let myself in the door and witnessed you chatting with her two-dimensional self. Sepia shadows lovingly contour her cheek bones as the brightest brown eyes you'll ever see gaze towards the light of a perfect Rembrandt. Bushy brown hair gleams in a perfectly styled 1940's up do framing an exotic yet wholesome face. You tell me I have her features joking, "Someday your going to poke someones eye out with those cheeks if your not careful!"--the comparison is flattery at it's finest.
I set you up comically close to the television in your easy chair and let the lullaby of the Lakers serenade you to sleep while I do the dishes and let myself out. The volume is on maximum.