eleanor ânoraâ frost is a local.
   local | columbia city | mortician | thirty-seven | female
trigger warnings (death, abandonment)
The mortuary sciences are not for the faint of heart, but they also arenât fitted for the heartless. It takes a careful person to find a proper place between the cold, scientific act of preparing a body for burial and the sympathetic demeanor that is required when dealing with bereaved families. Like a quarter on a razor blade, this person must balance logic and sentiment in an act that would make even the most talented of  tightrope walkers green with envy.  Consistently living in the middle of two worlds, morticians must be accustomed to being neither seen nor heard; this is, effectively, what made Eleanor Frost perfect for the career.
The Frost family wasnât impoverished, but they didnât exactly live a life of luxury. Her  mother and father  were swept up in a rather macabre romance due to the linking of their professions (he was a mortician and she was a florist). They dated briefly and were married in a sweltering church on a sticky, July afternoon. A honeymoon was taken Seattle, Washington,, which prompted the newlywed couple to fall in love with the vast possibilities that the eclectic city  had to offer. Within three years of their marriage, they had scrounged up enough money to purchase a funeral parlor that had been on the market for a few months. By the time they moved in, Eleanor Juniper Frost was only a month away from being born.
Of course, the second story of a funeral home isnât exactly the ideal place to raise a child. With gatherings of mourners one floor below and a cold, clinical embalming area even further beneath that, it would be expected of  little Nora to grow into a  somber and melancholy woman. Thankfully, this wasnât entirely the case â most of her evenings were spent at a flower shop with her mother while her days were spent attending a private all-girls school, removing her from the more depressing aspects of her fatherâs business. She was smart as a whip, albeit a little quiet and withdrawn, but teachers loved her and all agreed that there was nothing unusual about her silence; Nora could relate to other children, but she preferred listening to talking.
It came as a little bit of a surprise that Nora opted to join the mortuary career field. Both her mother and father believed that she would follow in her motherâs footsteps and become a florist; she had enjoyed spending time with her mother and caring for plants so much, after all. Though they tried to make sure that she had made the right decision, they accepted their daughterâs resignation and did all they could to help put her through school.
During the course of her schooling, Nora was encouraged to attend various mortuary sciences conferences. Her professors believed it would be a good idea to meet people who had been in the business for quite some time, and they secretly hoped she would find a career opportunity somewhere. While she did enjoy her time speaking to like-minded individuals, she found that her interests in such conferences ended up being adjusted after she met the man who would become her her confidant and, eventually, her  lover. William Cromwell was quiet and thoughtful, just as Nora was, and they found that they fell into conversation easily. After meeting at a few conferences, they exchanged addresses and began to send letters to one another.
Through the power and beauty of words alone, both William and Nora fell madly in love. Though he lived in New York and she lived in Washington, it felt as if they may as well have been worlds away from one another. Their only physical contact came from brief trysts that were usually scheduled around conferences, but the letters were frequent and enough for Noraâs love to grow more and more with each passing day. She couldnât have asked for a more perfect suitor, but she should have known that perfection would come at a price.
As her graduation drew closer, William made plans to move to Washington so that he and Nora might start a life together. It was an unspoken understanding that they would be married and have a family sometime, so Nora set her sights on taking over her fatherâs funeral home. William was busy with his own affairs â too busy to come to Washington or to attend conferences, much to Noraâs dismay â but the letters continued to roll in⌠until they didnât.
It was as simple and as complicated as that. Where letters had previously been arriving religiously, they began to dwindle until they simply didnât exist anymore. William had expressed no disdain for Nora, but getting in contact with him was impossible. She continued to send letters to him, she attempted to call him, and she did her best to try and find the man she loved so dearly. In the age of technology, she assumed that finding a person would be incredibly simple, but she was so wrong. When her letters started coming back with âRETURN TO SENDERâ stamped in damning red ink, Nora knew that something was amiss. Even so, she continued to hope that there was a misunderstanding of some sort.
By the time that she had her degrees and was ready to run the funeral home, her father had lost his beloved business and moved to Maine with her mother. The parlor that Nora had expected to be a family business was foreclosed and left on the market, currently standing as an empty shell of what might have been.
As she continues to search for William, Nora has come to realize that she has very little information about him. She knows his name, what was his address at one point in time, and a few other tidbits of information. His mobile phone seems to have been disconnected, though she continues to attempt to call his landline. Occasionally, sheâll write a letter that she knows is fated to be sent back to her own mailbox. Each rejected letter is another wound, every unanswered phone call is an attack against her very soul. The questions she has require answers that donât seem to exist, and sheâs come to a point in which she would consider finding outside help in her investigation.
Currently, Nora has found work at a funeral home in downtown Seattle. Her eye is often drawn to the parlor in which she lived and her father worked, but she hasnât the funds to set up shop just yet. All of her time and efforts are consumed by the thought that William might be somewhere looking for her, too.
Nora is a great many things; intelligent, thoughtful, cold when she needs to be and kind in good measure. For someone who spends so much time surrounded by death, her appreciation for life presents itself in a reserved fashion. She doesnât believe in seeking danger for the thrill of it, and doesnât believe that a life can be wasted on missed opportunities. In her opinion, living life to the fullest can mean spending time in a cafe with coffee and a good book. Travel has only rarely crossed her mind, and she remains content in Seattle as long as she has a job and a goal to work toward. Small things are what she takes comfort in, be it the crackling of vinyl playing from a phonograph or the way her small collection of plants and succulents thrive in the early days of spring. Still yet, it isnât unusual for a shade of melancholy to eclipse her features when she believes herself to be entirely alone.
Despite all this, Nora has a keen sense of adventure and places a high value on her independence. Adventure, in her mind, can be anything that inspires some child-like sense of wonder or a thirst for things beyond oneâs comfort zone. For Nora, this can be as simple as taking a different route home or trying out a new restaurant. Â In this way, she is subdued but paradoxically vibrant. Inside her lies the ability to peer into the deepest recesses of people and places, to look past the surface and to find something wonderful within.
   â of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest. â
