To force me to get him that one forbidden pleasure he still desires
in this his final year (neither knows it will be the final year
but we consider it),
he tells me:
"It's all I have left in my little life."
He means it literally--his life is shrinking from town to house
to room to king bed to hospital cot in the corner of our room.
He has been warned: never salt, never! but he craves sausage biscuists
every morning. He is too thin to be recognized but pleads, Oh come on,
let me have the damn biscuit. His little life comes up again.
I wish I could explain how it feels
to sit beside him who has been so humbled.
To sit with him in the drive through window of McDonald's
on our way to the dialysis center.
To order for him the #8 breakfast:
Sausage biscuit, coffee, hash browns, a second biscuit.
To know it is bad bad bad but it's all the food he will want
until tomorrow.
To stare straight ahead, to know something is coming soon
to kill him.
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