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| Some Pray Without Speaking (M.A. Reilly, LBI, 2010) |
Family and friends have gone home or are here asleep in other rooms. I am sitting next to Rob in the downstairs of our home. This morning Rob was largely unresponsive. After giving him water and talking with him he roused slightly. When the Hospice health aid came to clean Rob, she and I worked together to move him and to wash his beautiful and too scarred body. We changed the sheets and for the first time in ages he is wearing a plain white t-shirt instead of a hospital gown and he looks like my Rob.
But my Rob has suffered so much and the cancer is throughout his body and now it is time for that body to die--for this man to find peace. About 2 p.m. Rob rallied a bit, became lucid, and said good bye to us. I whispered to him. I told him it was okay for him to leave Devon and me. He gestured to his lips and I have never known the intimacy of a kiss like the one we shared.
"I'll read the signs you leave behind and find you in some parallel universe where cancer does not exist. I love you, Rob Cohen, so much. I'll love you forever."
