before/after

I visited my family in mt. airy, north carolina recently. the last time i went, my best picture that came out of the trip was of my dying great-aunt, Imogen, on her hospital bed in the middle of her living room. She died shortly after, and this was my first visit to her widower, my great-uncle Tom, and to that house since her death. My biggest concern was somehow for that living room. I didn't remember it before the hospital bed and the almost always unconscious woman. She was set up there, the first thing you see when you walk into the house, in the middle of the living room, on display for everyone. She had become so integral to the house itself that I didn't know how to be in there without that hospital bed. Now there is just a couch occupying her space, as if she was never there.