Requiem for Mrs. P
By C.V.
Beck
Today, on my way back from the
Rite-Aid Flu Shot Festival, I walked past what we, the residents of Lincoln
Place usually refer to as “Building 18,” the only remodeled
building at Lincoln Place Garden Apartments. I noticed that someone, finally,
has taken away all of the ghastly, tattered and shredded, formerly phonily or
should I say “faux” (faux-ly?) festive flag pennants that had been
around the perimeter.
I decided to revisit Mrs. Ponce’s
apartment. I walked thru the “gates”, saw that the purple bearded
barley landscaping is now growing wildly over the walkway, unmaintained, and
tiptoed up the steps to Mrs. P’s, a small dachshund barking lonely and
noisily in the next patio, as I passed, of the only remaining occupants of this
grandiosely remodeled, grotesquely up-scaled and bizarre-looking building.
I looked in the kitchen window and saw
that “they” have never finished the remodeling of her apartment and
remembered that AIMCO was in the picture during that time, too, while keeping a
very low profile.
On the 28th of this
October, 2005, it will be two years since Mrs. Laura Luisa Packman Ponce died,
in tragic and horrible circumstances in the “slums” of Beverly Glen,
up north above Sunset Boulevard, in a very strange but lovely woodsy place
waiting -- while the cancer clock was ticking madly --to be returned to her
well-loved and cherished apartment, here at Lincoln Place, in good faith, when
there was none to be forthcoming.
And
I then reflect on what we, the tenants of Lincoln Place are dealing with now,
have been dealing with for years and years, almost twenty years now, more than a
generation, of abuse, governmental incompetence, looking for justice and
righteous persons in our government in Los Angeles and from our landlords.
Rest in
peace, Mrs. P. I think of you often and I also think from time to time of the
photograph of Lincoln Place I slipped into your coffin to accompany you on your
journey throughout eternity --to remind you of what you thought was your
“home”.
Posted: Wed - November 2, 2005 at 05:36 PM