Marta Wojcik

The smell of lavender oil lingers in the air. One of the nurses must have put some on my pillow. They think it helps us relax. Maybe it does. I don’t mind it. There are worse things to inhale in your final days.

I had a dream about my daughter last night. She was sitting by my bed, holding my hand, just as I once held hers. Her face was young, her hair still thick, her voice full of life. She told me not to worry, that she would be there when the time came. It was a comforting dream, though I wonder if she would scold me for calling it that.

The doctor came in this morning with his usual gentle voice, as if speaking too loudly might startle me into dying a little faster. He says the cancer is moving quickly now. I could have told him that myself. I feel it in my ribs, in the way my breath rattles like loose glass. Not long now.

I think about my husband sometimes, how he would sit at the kitchen table, lighting one cigarette after another. The yellow stain on his fingers, the ash that would fall onto the newspaper he never really read. He would have been a miserable old man if he had lived this long. Perhaps the accident was a kindness.

My daughter was different. She fought, she wanted more time. I sat by her bed, day after day, night after night, watching her slip away. There were moments of peace, even laughter. I remember brushing her hair, as I did when she was little. I remember reading to her, though I don’t know if she could hear me in the end.

Now I am the one waiting. The roles have reversed, but there is no one left to keep watch over me. The nurses are kind, but they are not my daughter.

People fear death, but I don’t. I have had enough time to make my peace. I only wish the world were gentler with its dying. We hide the sick, push them into places like this, out of sight, out of mind. If we faced death more often, maybe we wouldn’t fear it so much.

Through the window, I see the grey rooftops of Warsaw, Poland, stretching toward the horizon. The sky is the color of old pearls, the clouds hanging low over the city. I will see them soon.