Occasionally, late at night,
I took a break from my vigil at the hospital
by sitting in an area across from the nurses station.

I watched medical people go in and out of the elevator.

I drank my tea from a large paper cup that I placed
on an end table next to my chair.

As I got out of my chair to leave,
I knocked over the tea, which spilled
on the carpet.

The nurse, a dead ringer for Nurse Ratched from
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, gasped and
frowned.

“You should have had a lid on it,” she said.

She was right.

“I’m so sorry.” I said. “I can clean it up.”

“Just leave it.”

So I did.

The next morning I checked on my mishap’s status.
The area was no longer wet, but a stain remained.
Tea is stubborn.

Every day, I checked. The stain remained.

Three days later, my loved one passed away.

It gives me comfort to know that my tea stain
still has a presence on the 4th floor carpet
near the elevators, across from the nurse’s station.

Life goes on, but the tea stain remains.