This is the Way We Say Goodbye: Living Until the Last Minute

It's a luxury, being able to say goodbye at all. I tell myself that it's better to have loved and lost but the losing goes on, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. We hold hands and talk of mortgages, taxes, the damp spot in the guest bedroom wall that needs repair. 
The young doctor comes in, yanks at his stethoscope, asks, "What was your profession?" My husband and I look at each other. The past tense hangs around a man still living, still breathing, still practicing his profession--a dissertation lies on his hospital table. We read the fine print on the pharmacy description of the chemo we've been told has "no side effects," and find listed among numerous "unintentional results" the word "death." We laugh because we're crying.
"It's just death," we say, "just death!"
We talk of the suddenly vegan child, who last week demanded I buy him chicken ("I had to buy a Döner I was so hungry!") but who now does not wish to consume said chicken. We smile. We wish we could go on having our little talks and jokes about things the children are doing, what kind of wine we're having with dinner, and what we'll watch when we've gotten to the end of The Crown. We gloat over the kids again, toting up their successes, reminiscing about them, about the beginning of the romance, about love. We go back to small talk and holding hands, each of us afraid he's going to die tomorrow. 
And then he does, when I'm not there, but at least I'd read him the 23rd psalm in English and in German. I'm told his departure was fast and painless.