LIFE IS SHORT | Autobiography as Haiku

(Courtesy of Tom Dooley)

We had just completed a filling meal when the waitress asked if we wanted dessert. Before we could answer, she volunteered that a week before a customer had decided to skip dessert, had left the restaurant and was killed by a passing car, never to have dessert again. We all had strawberry cheesecake.

Tom Dooley

Rehoboth Beach, Del.

White holiday lights rest on the sculpture out front. It's warm and dark inside. In my teens, this place sold party dresses. Today, it serves teas that you order by name. Soon I'll join husband and friends at a gallery opening. Son is safe in the suburbs with the premium local babysitter, a high school senior who is CPR-certified. Behind my back, customers in line choose their brews, which are hidden behind a hundred little wooden drawers. The tea-meister's voice rises a notch in volume, or maybe it just seems that way: "Sorry, we're out of World Peace. You can have anything else."

(Family Photo)

Ellen Lent

Olney

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