After it all went down, we asked how she did it.
“It all seemed so scary. How’d you keep it all together?”
“I didn’t see any other way,” she said, “it was either this
or just collapse. I wasn’t going to collapse, so I kept going.”

It was impressive anyway.
“You kept calm under really strained circumstances,”
someone responded, “I don’t know that I could’ve done that.” “I didn’t find much choice in the matter.” She shot back,
“It was all I could do: keep on keeping on.”

We nodded at her sage suggestion.
It was what we would all try to do
when next the going got tough.

She sent us all on our respective ways
soon after.
She never really had much time
for any of us.