I have time now to think about what has happened to me. I am undergoing chemotherapy, with radiotherapy to follow. The doctors are optimistic and have decided I have a good chance of coming out of this alive, but of course I know that, ultimately, nobody gets out alive. A strikingly clear and simple thought has occurred to me: illness is a matter of life, not of death. What matters is how we comport ourselves as we walk away from the last home we live in.