A little lady bug story

There was a lady bug in my kitchen, right on the countertop. I didn't want to kill her, so I moved her, then let her go where she would. When she rested on the trash I let her down into the waste basket. Next day she was out and up on my countertop again.

Two days she spent in my kitchen, as well as I can tell, moving around on the sink and behind the cutting board, on the soap dispenser holder and the window sill. Somehow, she made me feel good. 

Today I have not seen her. I do not know what it means or where she has gone. I looked up some information on lady bugs, thinking her life must be short. 

But, no, they live two or three years--I was much surprised to know it--and they hibernate in winter. 

So why now has she come in? Or has she just now come out of hibernation somewhere in the cracks of my house? 

I wonder if she came to see if my narcissus plant in the kitchen window has aphids. Lady bugs eat aphids, you know.

I hope she is still alive, not like the dead lady bug I found up on my bathroom window sill this morning. Lady bugs often come into houses in winter, I learned, but they need moisture, and many houses here are dry from the furnace heat, and the lady bugs dehydrate and die, like the one upstairs. 

Of course, I do not know if my lady bug was a lady or a man.