The fact that art provides comfort and hope isn't often realized until it's happening, especially to someone lying in a hospital bed. She wasn’t feeling very well. Her liver was getting bigger, and it was pressing on her other organs, making her very uncomfortable. So when I told her about my word project, she thought for a minute and decided it really wasn’t for her. I asked how long she had been sick. She said her breast cancer had first shown up 15 years ago. She was sad t

He hovered around her, fluffing her pillows and clearing away her uneaten breakfast. He cheerfully reported all that he had accomplished so early in the day, and wondered what else he could do for her before taking off again into his busyness. And she lay there smiling, and dying. All the while, she talked to me about the meaning of her life. She made it clear she didn’t need his help with that; she only needed from him what he had to give. The dance of life as death approach