Monday, 21 December (Day 10).

My wife encourages me to make a list of the things I want to do before I go. The language that she uses to tell me this is strange and uncharacteristic. Only later, while urinating off the back patio, does it occur to me that she is probably operating from a script. They must have given her a script and she is using it to help me. I am convulsed immediately by the totality of her sacrifice: that in the final moments of our shared life she has somehow abnegated her true heart’s speech. These are the thoughts I think as I zip up my pants.