The manner of her departure

Small pods of cells, tested, were interpreted as being out of line. Blood tests revealed showed hints of future troubles. And she wondered why she had become so lax, no longer stepping out in the cool of the evening to catch the rising scent of mown grass and crushed moss, or at rosy dawn to hear the chorus of birds. Why not travel, finally, to Alaska by boat this summer. Not even to take pictures, or write about it, but just to be in every moment she had left. Probably a long time, really–there was nothing to say otherwise–only the usual matters that arise in one’s sixth decade of life. She had been fortunate it had taken so long. “Really? No medications? None at all?” the nurse had repeated, incredulous.

She saw also in her alum magazine that it was that time, that death in her generation was no longer a tragic anomolgy, but a trend. Some had perished by fire and flood, but most were merely managing in bodies shutting down, or experiencing runaway biochemical processes that could not be stopped, only alleviated. Each name read opened up a porthole in her memory out of which flooded images, words, songs, various times of day and feelings. Each one a thread leading out of the rend between life and death, at least for a time. Each one who knows another bears a few such threads. Are they strengthened by writing it all down, or is that meaningless except to the writer. No, I think not.