Slipping Away

We all gathered around Aunt Gertrude’s bed and watched as she slowly slipped away.
“She’s slid off the bed!” shouted Cousin Eddie. “Catch her!”
Yeah, we’d warned the hospice workers that Gertrude had a thing for slathering with grease, but they watched television instead of Gertie, and she’d hidden a tub of it under her pillow.
Uncle Larry made a grab for her, narrowly missing. She slipped past all of us, out the door, and down the hall.
Oh well. At least she didn’t fade away like Grandma Phyllis.
(We still trip over her invisible body every now and then.)