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And next year's words await another voice.
For me, it felt in my life like the break of day. I was in my late twenties, married and with two young children, at long last moving out from life fully bound by outer structures: college, medical school, internship, residency, and the then required two years' uniformed service time. Eager to take full ownership of life, I was shocked when the doctor at my service discharge physical announced I should not resign from the service. “Why?” I demanded. Her words still echo: “Because your wife will need widow's benefits.”
That was one of three times doctors in different circumstances told me I likely had a fatal disease. Each of those times had a happy outcome, yet I know a time will come with a different ending. The ease with which now I reflect on transience is far from the cold terror that attends the imminent presence of death.
Death is a fact; its subjective impact varies with distance. I move a touch closer, from times that worked out well to one that did not. Standing at the bedside of a hospitalized friend on a day we both knew would be one of his last, I mentioned Prospero's line, “Every third thought will be my grave.” My friend fell momentarily silent, then smiled and said, “I like that—every third thought, not every second.”
Death's proximity concentrates one's mind. Desire to distance attention to the imminence of my own demise is apparent in the path I followed essaying this concept. Customarily, when writing, I start with a