The Nicest Person

On tuesdays after she had been out shopping she pushed her trolley home along the street And she would say good day to everybody the friendliest person you could wish to meet Her gray hair well combed always looked so tidy and she always dressed well and always looked so neat And she looked well for one in her mid seventies with a perfect set of her own clean white teeth. Old Joan she told me all about Melinda of how about an easy life she never knew Her husband died when their two daughters were schoolkids and Melinda herself only thirty two But she did cleaning jobs to raise her daughters the hardest working person in the town She rose at dawn for to cook for them their breakfast and she had little time for sitting down. Before herself she always put her children and they always looked so well dressed and well fed And she for them was such a great role model Melinda by good example always led Her daughters married well and gave her grandkids and though from her they lived long miles away They always kept in touch with their dear mother and rang her often every second day. Melinda had not been seen for a few days and one of her neighbours thought he would do the right thing He could see the light still switched on in her lounge room and he felt he ought to give the cops a ring The police came and found Melinda's body and it had the strong stench of death and decay In her lounge room she had disturbed a burglar her dried blood on the carpet where she lay. She won't be seen again on tuesday mornings pushing her shopping trolley home along the street And she will be sadly missed by all who knew her the nicest person one could wish to meet She never knew an easy life Melinda and of others she only had good to say And surely she deserved a better ending she did not deserve to die in such a way.