A hospice is a combination of the clinical and the poignant. He is 85 and is holding the hand of the woman who he has spent 60 years of his life with.
'You see - I am writing the book. The one you always wanted me to write. It's for you. I'm doing it now.'
She blinked.
He began to write. Sometimes he would read back what he had written so far.
Later, he sat further away. He had tears in his eyes.
I noticed that she had fixed her eyes, unblinking, on him even at all that distance. 'Go sit,' I said, 'She's asking you to be closer.'
He moved forward.
And silently she held his eyes; for a moment I felt she held all of him in her eyes, perhaps just as she used to hold him in her arms. I understood that when you love someone and you need to, you will find different ways of holding them, ways that belong to only you and them.
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