A long train ride to visit a friend I’ve neglected in the cancer ward in a south coast hospital. And a long wait until visiting time. The patient is sleeping, or is she already gone ? No, the wind is whistling through the valve in her throat and they’ve removed the stomach tube and they've attached the help-yourself-morphine drip. In mournful silence, I turn to search for a chair and then the old familiar smiling voice whispers from the pillow, “Hello, stranger!” “Stranger than fiction!”, I reply before we embark on a three hour conversation.
Darkness advances as the train pulls out on the return journey and we pass the beach at low tide. Three men with spades, for all the world like grave diggers, are silhouetted against the twilight waters.
Falling asleep in the loved one’s embrace, and waking there some time later, refreshed and healed.
