She sat with the open scrapbook in her lap.  The edges of its pages were yellowed and a bit tattered.

It wasn’t her youth she missed.  It was her loved ones.  Many had already passed on, but her children and grandchildren.  She rarely saw them.  They were too busy with their lives to take the time to visit an old woman.  They had placed her here so that she would be cared for.

Didn’t they realize she was lonely?

She looked at her hands.  Their skin was thin.  Blue veins and bones more visible than ever.  Brown age spots.  She wondered if counting her age spots were like counting the rings in the trunk of a tree cut down.

Oh, how she missed their smiles, laughter and hugs!  She still loved them so deeply.

A tear trickled down her cheek.  She didn’t feel loved.

If anyone asked her, she would say the worst part of growing old was becoming forgotten.