She had turned prematurely grey. A youthful, very pretty face framed by silky-straight hair that had turned from its light brown with auburn highlights to silver-grey. She hadn't bothered trying to cover it up. Why would she?  She looked, after all, extraordinarily attractive, different, quite lovely. She retained her youth figure and her youthful vigour.

Hers is the house at the very bottom of the street, her property running alongside the main street called, in French 'the pines'. Her house backs onto the ravine. A lovely forested scene to look out onto, perfectly located. When we first moved into our own home about midway up the street over two decades ago we used to see them, her and her husband, pushing a stroller, two toddlers walking alongside, an infant in the stroller. We would stop and talk briefly. Her smile was one of those reflecting a sunny disposition.

We didn't see one another often, but occasionally. Regularly when I stopped by during one of the door-to-door charitable canvasses I volunteered for. She would never turn away an appeal. And in this way I caught glimpses of her children as they grew. She was always herself personable, chatty, good-humoured. And her children modelled themselves after their mother.

I saw her soberly still only once, and that was many years later, when she informed me her oh-so-pleasant-but-distant husband had left her. He lived now with another woman. A young woman who was pregnant with his child. And whom, he told her earnestly, he loved. As he had once loved her. She stifled her despair as best she could. Her children, she said, on the cusp of adulthood, were angry with their father. She wouldn't encourage that.

She bought a puppy, a chunky, energetic, happy-go-lucky little husky-mix, and she adored the furry little ball. Before long, the reciprocal exchange was evident, though the little dog -- because it turned out little for its mixed-breed status -- seemed to love everyone that came by. A week ago she told me that her oldest daughter was expecting. Her first grandchild.

Her daughter had telephoned her unexpectedly in late March to say guess what, Mom, we're getting married! She had informed her mother a week earlier that she was pregnant. Now, it was: 'we decided to get married; could you do the wedding?' They had twenty-five guests, six weeks later, cooked all the food themselves, rented chairs, emptied the great room for the ceremony and following celebration.

She is relatively content.