not being able to give you a retirement party. You left so suddenly. So we all put our heads together. Here. Here’s the card.

I’m honored.

And I was. Extraordinarily touched.

We all felt the same. It was an honor working with you.

I reached out and touched the statue, traced the gilt crown, the lines of the robe from her shoulders to the floor.

Sarah pointed to the statue. Why does she have a cut in the middle of her forehead?

According to the Saint Rita legend, she asked God to let her suffer the same way he did, and a thorn fell off a crucifix that was hanging on the wall and wounded her.

What about the rose she’s carrying?

When she was dying, her cousin asked if there was anything she wanted. She requested a rose from her garden. Even though it was winter, a rose was blooming there.

I just love these old legends, don’t you?

Some are more interesting than others. I don’t find Rita’s story particularly compelling. The cruel father, the drunken husband, the disobedient sons. Trite stuff. I like the idea that there’s someone you can go to when all else has failed.

Have you ever invoked her? Just curious.

No. No. On those rare occasions when I needed help, there were others I could ask.

You’re talking about human intervention. I’m talking about something else.

You mean, a higher power?

I mean . . . your diagnosis. Sarah said this tentatively. We’ve never discussed this. Officially, no one at the hospital knows why I retired early. Unofficially is another matter, I suspect.

I won’t say I didn’t hope there was a mistake.

No praying for a miracle?

None whatsoever.

How about just plain hope?

None of that, either.

How can you go on? I don’t understand.

What is there to understand? I have a degenerative disease. There is no cure for that disease. That is the condition facing hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

You’re so clinical about it. This is your life, not some hypothetical patient.

And whatever choice do I have, my dear Sarah?

I’m sorry. I’m prying. I guess I’m just wondering. How you keep going.

At some point we die. Except under unusual circumstances, we usually get some advance warning. Some of us know sooner than others. Some of us will suffer more than others. You’re asking, how do you endure that interval between when you know you’re dying and when you actually die?

Yes, I guess so.

I suppose everyone is different. To get her through, Saint Rita wanted the impossible: a rose in midwinter.

And you?

I was stymied. No one asks me such things anymore. They ask me if I want tea. If I’m cold. If I want to listen to some Bach. Avoidance of the big questions.

My deathbed wish?

Well, not deathbed! But do you think you’ll stay as practical as time progresses? Or will you ever be tempted to ask for the impossible?

Part of my condition is that the line between those two things is increasingly blurred. I was looking through my notebook this morning, and apparently on some days I still have my parents with me. Magdalena has recorded some long talks I have with them. I don’t remember any of this, of course. But I like the idea very much.

So maybe some very impossible requests are being granted.

Perhaps. Yes. And I’ve been thinking. What you said about how one keeps going.

Yes?

A dear friend of mine just died.

Yes, I heard. I’m sorry.

And amid the grief and the anger, I found myself feeling gratitude— gratitude that it wasn’t me. So at some level I still see death as something to be put off. It’s not that I don’t think about it—and I won’t say that on bad days I don’t plan for when things are a lot worse. But I’m not ready yet.

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