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“I remember clearly in the hospital how I felt this strange closeness with God, how I did not feel like dry grass. I was becoming less and less, but I becoming less and less, but I was not reduced to nothing God's love was everywhere, sticking to everything. Love was in my husband's hand on my back, steadying me, a lightness under my feet, all over Zach's velvety wars. I flushed with embarrassment when I described this feeling to my friends, stumbling as I tried to explain its sudden appearance (Wasn't it there before?), that love itself was suddenly more real to me than my own thoughts. Despair was never far away, but somehow the seams of the universe had come undone, and all the splendid, ragged edges were showing. And they brought me close than I've e ed been to the truth of this experiment— living— and how the horror and the beauty of it feels almost blinding.”

“The hardest lessons come from the solutions people, who are already a little disappointed that I am not saving myself. There is always a nutritional supplement, Bible verse or mental process I have not adequately tried. “Keep smiling! Your attitude determines your destiny!” said a stranger named Jane in an email, having heard my news somewhere, and I was immediately worn out by the tyranny of prescriptive joy.”

“I have another scan this week," I say lightly, hoping to reassure my loved ones that it is safe to rejoin my orbit. There is always another scan, because this is my reality. But the people I know are often busy contending with mildly painful ambition and the possibility of reward. I try to begrudge them nothing, except I'm not alongside them anymore. In the meantime, I have been hunkering down with old medical supplies and swelling resentment. I tried— haven't I tried? — to avoid fights and remember birthdays. I showed up for dance recitals and listened to weight-loss dreams and kept the granularity of my medical treatments in soft focus. A person like that would be easier to love, I reasoned. I try a small experiment and stop calling my regular rotation of friends and family, hoping that they will call me back on their own. _This is not a test. This is not a test._ The phone goes quiet, except for a handful of calls. I feel heavy with strange new grief. Is it bitter or unkind to want everyone to remember what I can't forget? Who wants to be confronted with the reality that we are all a breath away from a problem that could alter our lives completely? A friend with a very sick child said it best: I'm everyone's inspiration and and no one's friend. I am asked all the time to say that, given what I've gained in perspective, I would never go back. Who would want to know the truth? Before was better.”