Precious correspondence

THE ELDERLY LADY across the street drove a Chrysler the size of a woolly mammoth, and drove it with perfect posture. The paint on her shutters never chipped. Leaves from her trees did not clutter her yard. They fell into ours, and we did not mind, because she was so gracious.

She was an early settler on the street, wife of a lawyer and mother of five. Her children grew, achieved, and left, and when they did, she admired everyone else's. Her husband died, and for years afterward she lived alone except for the woolly mammoth, sweeping her front porch in gloves, and hand-delivering holiday greetings. She asked us to call her by her first name, but that informality was unthinkable.

When she was in her late 80s and still cogent as a student, she gave up the mammoth, put her house on the market, wrapped some bone china teacups for farewell gifts, and, without complaint of any kind, moved two towns away into a nursing home. I thought it was the end of our neighborly relations. But actually it was the beginning.

Over the next 10 years, an envelope arrived each month. Inside, clipped with embroidery scissors and folded into thirds, was a copy of whatever newspaper piece I had just written, with a note suggesting I might want an extra copy for my files (maybe she thought I could not afford another newspaper). She would add a few personal paragraphs. There were always inquiries about my family. A recitation of grandchildren's accomplishments. Mention of some group outing sponsored by the nursing home, always most interesting, though the outings were to museums and parks she had visited dozens of times when she lived in her house across the street. Still, she was so fortunate. There was never a complaint about age, stiffness, or solitude. She closed with an apology for running on.

We lived only two miles from each other by Chrysler. But it did not occur to me to visit her. There was something precious about the correspondence that would not bear closer contact. Tick tick tick, three days after each month's newspaper piece, her envelope was in my mailbox, gently reliable. She was aging uncomplainingly. It was inspiring. It was like being told, during one's fearful first pregnancy, that giving birth is not so bad.

Her handwriting began to diminish. She ended the notes with apologies for her sloppiness - but also, always, something to appreciate; this bird, that thoughtful aide, this season, that nephew who had popped by.

Six months ago, the usual envelope arrived. She was at the mercy of her tremor now, writing up and down side margins. Reading the card was like twisting a kaleidoscope.

"I turned 98 this week," it said. "The grandchildren took me to Anthony's. They are so kind."

I had to turn the page sideways to read up its edge for the last sentence. "I do not care to turn 100," it said.

Several months went by - tick tick tick, in the ambitions and busyness of life - before I realized I had not heard from her. I waited another month just to be sure the perception was accurate. I would not have dreamed of calling her; it was against the genteel rules. But one night, heaven help me, I Googled her, exactly the kind of intrusion she would never have allowed herself. Nothing came up. I resubmitted her name, added a word, and an obituary appeared.

The neat cuts of her embroidery scissors had snipped what lay ahead into a comforting shape. After 98 years, she was entitled to lose the will to live. No one wishes for immortality once they understand what it entails. But I felt oddly unforgiving. The letters had become a symbol and a selfish solace, and now they would be neither.

At the very least, I thought unreasonably, she could have written to tell me she was dead.

Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist.