Happenstance

He was born in 1921, a November
child, and she in 1933, a child of
February, though it was March when 
they both departed this mortal coil
they shared. She loved animals and
pottering in her garden, and took
exquisite care of those she served
as a community public-health nurse,
while he, a former serviceman who
served in Britain and saw battle in
Italy, became a dedicated teacher in
the public school board, then a
principal. Involved in human rights,
poverty eradication and universal
education, a noble man, and a devout
Anglican, as was indeed she, a 
whimsical sentimentalist with love
and empathy to spare. What a truly
extraordinary pair. Pity they never met,
though their brief life stories sit
side by side on the dispatches page,
a couple whom surely fate might
have designated a natural pair,
together in death; never, as it happened, 
during their admirably fruitful lives.