I didn’t laugh then, though I wanted to.  Instead, I told Tammy that she had a way with words.  I later learned she also had a way with people.  She loved her work as a  hospice nurse, and often left the Indian reservation where she lived with her husband and his kids in Oklahoma to come to work for weeks in one of the richest neighborhoods of  Dallas.  There, Tammy took care of the wealthy dying in Highland Park.  It was her job to help these people pass from this world into the next.  She was brilliant at what she did. And in a place so foreign to her, Tammy was Highland Park's opposite.  At least I’m sure that’s how Tammy appeared to those she helped, these aged oil tycoons, ranchers, old money, steeped together in anger, sadness, and longing.

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