Aging Out of Memories

"Good morning, Princess Elizabeth," I'd say as we passed on the steps of the shabby apartment house where we both lived in 1971. Princess Elizabeth was my neighbor in Albany, NY, a cold Northeast city blanketed in snow from November into March. I was about 19 years old, a student/cocktail waitress.  Until the shots crackled and the blood droplets appeared on the snow, I didn't think much about Princess Elizabeth .  No one did. Princess Elizabeth may have been placed in the basement apartment by social services. I only recall our landlord’s request - that she was a nice woman who’d   been discharged from a hospital and needed a place where she would feel welcome. In the culture of the times, I agreed. I knew little about  deinstitutionalization  She introduced herself as Princess Elizabeth. She was frumpy, pudgy-faced and ever-cheerful. Unless she was screaming in the common back stairwell.  Middle-aged, her skin was more blotchy than lined. Her comfort...