Soon

(image from here)

The image above is from Tumblr, where many blogs are looking forward to Halloween, but when I saw it today, I thought it was a image of death reminding me that life's short.  Because it is.

When have a neighbor who's in his late eighties.  We met because he & his wife have a corner house & they were always working on their property, planting flowers, weeding, etc., when we talked by on dog walks.  They'd say hello & our dogs would be happy to see them.  The husband in particular loved our pups.

Until a month ago, he was a double cancer survivor.  He successfully beat prostate cancer at some point in the past, & recently finished chemo for a mass they discovered, which shrunk after weeks of treatment.  I guess it's been maybe three weeks since he complained of pain, was taken to the hospital, & it was discovered he had more cancer elsewhere - & he was too weak to get treated for this one.

When I go by the house now - we stop to see his wife, who updates us on his condition - I think about that moment when he was taken to the hospital because he was unwell.  Did he know it was the last time he'd see his home - the place he raised his kids, where he lived longer than I've been alive?  Because from the hospital he's been taken to hospice, from where he will leave our sad world.

We visited him there yesterday.  His wife says that he doesn't say much, but he smiled a little petting the dogs, who were very kind to him.  I confess I don't think he likes me all that much, but he adores my wife & the dogs.  We plan to take the pooches to visit him again next week if we can.

My train of thought is a little trackless, I was going to say, he's not talking much, & I wonder if it's because he knows he's dying, or if it's because he is just simply in so much pain that it takes all his attention.  Or if dying takes all one's attention.  He won't - & maybe can't - say.

The thing is, I am not generally a person who dwells on death.  I plan very poorly, I have my sights mainly set on the next radio show.  But we're approaching the second anniversary of my mother's death, & we're watching in real time as a neighborhood friend prepares to go.  It's hard not to think of such things at this point in time.

Sorry this is so morbid & a bummer.  It's not anything to do with the radio show at all.  He once told me, looking at his yard, "I don't know what's going to happen to all this when I'm gone."  He never seemed to be afraid of death, he's a religious fellow, I think he finds comfort in that.  I said, "You won't have to worry about it at that point, since you won't be here."  He said, "Yeah," & looked around.

That was really the only time he & I discussed death.  It honestly didn't seem like it was coming for him any time soon.