When thought finally failed her, I could feel the weight of everything... in front of me.

Of years, only 22 of them.

And in this movie I was watching—white white movie—words began to thin. Wit failed. She lay in bed alone every extended minute as her condition was taught to student fellows, and her life did just as they tell you it will—it flashed before her eyes. Well, it stretched. It eased past. She cried a little, like I’ve cried a little. Regret, sentimentality, a short peek at that final goodness forcing an emotive frown.

But when she was sickest, a friend came off the street. She put down her shopping bags and sat by her, and held her. Words were over. Laying on her side, she opened her eyes and felt so bad. She sobbed and shook asthmatically. Violently thanked the air around her for this friend who had no reason to give this kindness. A person who in all her years had succeeded in constructing this valuable humanity that so many of us can’t rationalize. Impractical. Unconventional. Weak.

I’m comfortable with my sobs. I’m happy I have them in me. I wrenched cries that soaked my hands. I thought about my neighbors. I can hear them when they giggle, and when they close their cabinet doors. They must have heard me cracking. They must have thought someone had died. I even fell to the floor and stuttered and echoed into my knees and into the carpet.

I was relieved by my sense of embarrassment. I wondered if I would tiptoe to the door of a crying neighbor, and confided silently to my neighbors that I wouldn't. This wasn’t for anyone else to see.

...everything. Being regret and guilt. Love. Idealisms and sincere objectives. Sympathy. Loneliness, and plenty of fear.

why do we have to die for these things to be delivered to us… why do we have to wade through this wit, this pride, this insecurity, for the light to flood in…