I never really noticed Grandma’s scarflette.

It was as inconsequential to me as my mother’s wedding ring, or the welcome mat at our front door.

It was just always there.

She was also always impeccably dressed, her outfits always assiduously and thoughtful enhancing its brightness.

It was never out of place, it was always hiding in plain sight.

But when she was on the hospital bed, with gray and white tubes coming out of her and crumpled hospital gown on, that it finally looked out of place.

Nestled next to her hospital tag.

“Is that not uncomfortable Grandma?” I had asked, offering her a black coffee.

She looked surprised for a moment, as though she couldn’t see what I was referring to.

“Oh no,” she smiled. “I’d be quite lost without it.”

A few days into her hospital stint, I’d strolled in prepared with her coffee and a new magazine to see that there was a man in the chair next to her bed.

I didn’t recognise him, but he was certainly making my now frail grandmother laugh. He was wearing a tattered suede jacket with a faded red handkerchief in his pocket, and there was tape keeping his glasses together. He looked worlds away from my grandfather, who’d always been smartly dressed in suspenders and a tie.

I decided it was best to give them some privacy.

I never got the chance to ask her who the man was, as a few days later on a work retreat that Grandma insisted I still go on, I received a call saying she’d passed.

When I went to collect her things I found her wedding ring wrapped in the red scarflette. Apparently, the nurse had found them like that.

I’d never seen her without either.