the other side of the coin

He heard a lot of things during those weeks before he died. Questions people had, their confusion, the hope that things would change. One thing that came up as a theme more often than others: cowardice. He wasn't thinking of others, he was being selfish, he was "running away", "giving up", "not trying".

I said it then and I'll say it now: his choices were brave ones. For him, for the type of person he was, "giving up" would have been to just keep going, losing more and more of himself, his health, his mobility each day. "Not trying" for him would have meant just going from day to day, letting things degrade, letting the diseases continue draining his life, his soul, his uniqueness, his savings, his dignity, his power, his independence.

Instead he made a hard choice, one that wasn't for everyone, but was the only option for him. What had once been a dim possibility, life without his love and with rapidly failing health, had become an exhausting reality. And things he had talked about in the abstract were now staring him in the face, forcing his hand and requiring him to evaluate, re-evaluate, re-re-evaluate everything that he was, everything that mattered, and the future he faced.

He stood tall, wrested control of his life back from the diseases that had taken it from him, and basically said "fuck you, you won't defeat me". That took a level of courage and fortitude that continues to affect me at profound levels, ways that will take a lifetime to process. He was a strong man who shared life with a strong woman...I was lucky to have them in my life. I can only hope I can be as strong...