Staying in the Life Outside

When summer turned to fall, the old man closed the window, not because he was cold, not yet, but because he thought he might be cold soon. And he didn’t want to be found lying dead on the bedroom floor in deep winter with snow heaped around him, the pipes in the house all frozen. It would make people think he was demented, not just old, and he couldn’t have that.

He didn’t know how many days or weeks he had left, so it was better to close the window now and just be done with it. So that’s what he did.

Then he waited. He sat down and waited. Many things had surprised him in his life but death wouldn’t. He knew it was coming. Any minute. The window was closed.

When I turned 65, I felt like I had been diagnosed with a terminal disease and had only…