What to say? Nothing bubbles from the well of numbness beginning to creep beneath my skin. My face feels dead, a mask with dark circles and sagging cheeks unable to lift into a smile unless a special moment occurs to warm my heart.
He is being brave and cracking jokes about his situation. Then he quiets, and we stare at each other. That's when I try to memorize the way the lines crinkle at the edges of his eyes, and how his mustached upper lip pulls back across his teeth, and notice his eyes glint with a shade of his old, merry twinkle.
To watch him struggle to breathe breaks my heart. To see his strong frame shrivel from lack of food that won't pass the pressure-filled sac around his heart makes me want to scream at this cancer, “Leave him alone. Let him die with a robust body.” But cancer doesn't work that way, and neither does death.
Dying in the prime of life happens by accident or design. For too many of us, we have to have our skin and muscles wither until they turn to dust or ash.
My only consolation with this anguish is that when he stops breathing, I will probably say, “Thank God.”
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