The sleep of doctors
Barry Meisenberg Annapolis, Maryland, United States Los Caprichos’: The sleep of reason produces monsters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos) 1799. Fransisco de Goya. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art The gods who rule 2AM summon the doctor from sleep to the sequestered place where the veneer of unearned pride is bleached away. You forgot […]
Unfettered grief
Lealani Acosta Nashville, Tennessee, United States Innocence behind the bangs of a child. Innocence by Lealani Mae Acosta. My first glimpse of unfettered grief was through shaggy six-year-old bangs, watching my mother weep, hunched over the toilet and framed by moonlight that cast the pale blue tiles of their master bathroom into darkness. I […]
Dance with death
Marianne Rogoff Kentfield, California, USA “All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important,vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.” ― Martha Graham Stephanie lived alone in a rented cottage at the back of a garden path. When she was dying at age fifty […]
Time
Paul Rousseau Charleston, South Carolina, United States Photography by Aldaron Selfishly, time is either too short or too long, the moment never appreciated. Mrs. Jones was a 69-year-old female with widely metastatic ovarian cancer, diagnosed during an emergency room visit for abdominal pain. After consultation with an oncologist, she elected to forgo chemotherapy and […]
Rethinking the knowledge of terminal illness: Is it a quality of life issue?
James B. Rickert Bloomington, Indiana, United States I found myself sitting again with an oncologist waiting to hear the results of treatment. I felt calmer this time because my friend, who was being evaluated for recurrent ovarian cancer, had requested that I come, but I still had a pit in my stomach. We had […]