Journal Excerpts
~
The ALS patient died yesterday.
He worked at my wife's shop.
He was brave and gentle and heroic as
his muscles failed one by one by one
by years til he lost the breath
and there was suffocation.
Those with the strongest will to live
make their suffering longer.
I want to cry bitter tears for this
man I scarcely knew
just for the outrage of it
this macabre death
this slow freeze.
At least the butterfly flies aloft now.
Pray for us, John.
~
He was too glad to see my wife. That was my first thought. The second was that he looked the part of uninteresting social climber. Probably read management books and went to sleep at night by counting the commas in his paycheck. He had opaque oval blue eyes and wore a gay green party hat on his head. This passed through my mind even while being introduced to him, before I could dismiss them as uncharitable thoughts which betrayed my snobbery and jealousy.
"This is Eric...this is the one I was telling you about who read "Dawn to Decadence".
I looked at him with renewed interest and curiosity. So this was the dedicated reader my wife spoke of. Who'd read the magisterial Jacques Barzun, the wise man of history who'd written an 800-page book describing the fall of the West from 1500 to the present.
"You two are exactly alike," my wife said.
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