I just spent the last 12 hours sitting with a man who is dying of cancer.
When I walked into his room this morning he showed all the signs of being minutes away from death.
12 hours later when I finally acquiesed and went home, he was still exhibiting the same signs.
I watched as his priest came in and gave him absolution from his sins.
I held his hand and we talked - about any and everything.
His body doesn't want to give up; it's still fighting what the cancer has done to him.
If he's still fighting tomorrow, I'll go back and sit with him again.
I learned some things today: I learned that we as a society regard our elderly as throw-away citizens, we make them not count because of their age and inability to provide anything we consider meaningful. We negate them as citizens and sometimes as people.
I learned that I don't ever want to live in a nursing home when I'm at the end of my days.
I learned that death cannot be hurried, that it will come in it's own good time and that there is no rhyme or even reason to it.
And finally, I learned what cancer smells like.