In moments like that we can pretend life is perfect. But it's not. And eventually, the moment ends, and Marvin goes home, and I try to fall asleep but I'm too caught up wondering what's going to happen if I do.

I've gotten used to it, to the idea of dying. But when Charlotte comes into the room days later, papers in hand, her expression giving away far too much already, I'm not prepared at all. She finally says it; says what we've all been thinking but have almost never said aloud: I am going to die.

And I don't know how to react. I don't know whether to break down crying, to shrug it off, to ask her for more information. In the end I ask her to go. I need some time to think.

I've been somewhat preparing myself for the prediction of death since the obvious decline of my health, but now that it's been said, it's so real. Too real. Why, is what I want to know. Why was I chosen? Why me, of all men? I can't stop thinking, I'm dying, and there's not a thing I can do about it. And Marvin. Oh, Marvin. No.

Throughout my life, I've always been afraid of death. The only family deaths I dealt with were my grandparents, so I figured at an early age it's when you get old that you die. Then I learned it's not always like that, not often. Younger people, even people who seemed healthy, could die. It felt like something cold and dark, something that could creep up on you without you even knowing. I became more aware of things. I avoided danger at all costs. I wanted to stay safe. I wanted to stay healthy. I wanted to stay alive as long as the world would have me, to die of old age, like my grandparents.

I suppose death means I don't need to have that fear anymore. After all, it's inevitable. No matter how safe you try and keep yourself, you gotta die sometime, right?

Fuck. All I wanted was more time. I wanted to live a happy life in a relationship, with a family. To have that as a gay person, to have what everybody told you growing up you couldn't have. I just wanted one more lazy Sunday afternoon, one more late night watching TV, one more chess game with Jason. It feels like my life is set to an hourglass and I'm watching the sand fall until there's none left.

It's taken me a while to come to terms with it. I'm going to die, and afterward there will be nothing left in my place. I am helpless.

I still long a bit for my childhood innocence, for the idea that you won't die until you've lived a full and happy life. That I would lie on my deathbed feeling nothing but gratitude for everybody and everything I encountered during my time on earth. That feeling isn't there. Instead it's resignation. I haven't lived a full life yet, but I'm dying, and there's nothing more to it than that.

I think of Marvin, of his family. His son who cancelled his bar mitzvah because of me. His ex-wife who made sure there was a place for me in the most confusing times. His good-hearted psychiatrist. His next-door neighbors. How could this chapter of my life have just started and already be ending?

As many questions as I have, I don't ask them, because I know there are no answers. That's life. Life sucks. And it will be over long before I'm ready.