Mor – tal – i – ty 

Noun: The state of being subject to death  

Similar: impermanence  temporality  transience 

It’s time. I get on the downtown bus which stops right next to the hospital. I need a handicapped seat, but I’m unwilling to argue with one of the spry old women from my neighborhood. They snap like turtles, evil eye you for weeks. Instead, I sit between chatting parents and kids, all heading to P.S. 173. We stop across the street from the school and the kids shout Goodbye as they leave.  

Pink unicorn backpacks 

Bright Spiderman shirts 

Kid kisses, the race to friends  

A yellow school bus   

Smaller town, different time 

Different world, same whys. 

The bus moves and I think I could learn sculpture given time. Breathe life into the clay in my hands, with my heart open like a child’s. But my heart is busy. It prepares to absorb the latest news, to resist overreaction, to focus on what can be done.  

I go through security in the hospital lobby, tell the guard I’m getting coffee from the café before my treatment. He smiles. Upstairs, I sit near the café to sip my vanilla latte. A med student I recognize listens to “Fight Song,” loud enough for me to hear, ‘Cause I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me. That’s what I am, I say to myself. A fighter.   

I check into the infusion center. An aide leads me to my cubical-like area, and I sit. She takes vitals and leaves. I hear gospel music, recognize the song, “How Great Thou Art.”  

“. . . When I in awesome wonder 
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made 
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder . . .” 
 

The music gets louder. She’s a bit hard of hearing, the nurse tells me as she puts the needle in my arm. It’s a sort of apology in case I’m offended by the Christianity of it. Not a problem, I answer. I sip coffee and smile at the gray-haired music lover when she notices me.   

On the way home I order chicken and broccoli at the corner Chinese restaurant, down the block from where I once saw Liam Neeson film a part of A Walk Among the Tombstones. 

I wait and watch kids pass by on their way home from afterschool care. I remember getting new school clothes each year, new pencils, new notebooks and crayons. I loved school, especially the possibilities September brought. I walk home as those happy memories lay a soft gauze over my fears and what-ifs. I sleep peacefully.