Character Portrait — A Sister Unarmored

Mary Alice, A Sister Unarmored

She Fought in Life and in Dying.

She carried hurt like a concealed weapon — hidden, but ready. Experience built her spine into defense, always braced for the next blow. Lonely, yet choosing aloneness, shielding her uncertainties from peering eyes. Creativity shimmered through her — words, clothes, rooms — impossible to bury. She did not trust, nor ask for trust in return — unwilling to offer what she never received. She envied those who walked unarmored, unaware of danger. She searched for others bruised like her, giving away what she had been denied. She fought while living and again at dying. Her truelove withheld love, even in the presence of death. She did not die alone — but beside someone who could not trust either.