Only one day ago, there was a stray corner of Stray Country kept hemmed in by a retired seamstress on Eastmoor rd.

Mrs. Mary Brogan, who by the sacraments of her religion was aging.  An over-the-hill husk of a woman who now and then caught a reflection of a woman who'd left too many pieces of her youth in too many ashtrays for too many years for too few executives at 120 Park Avenue. 

Mrs. Mary Brogan, a woman who kept the faith, but left a second chance lying in a pile of smoke in a glass-blown ashtray somewhere on Eastmoor rd.

A woman who always believed the next cigarette was her last cigarette, and her last cigarette was her last chance. 

A woman who still believes it . . . even in death.