On The Long March

 My cousin's piece on illness and the end, followed by my reply... 

Dear Richard:

The thing is, the degradation is so slow as to be imperceptible.  I get up in the morning feeling like crap, but do I feel any the worse for wear than yesterday morning?  It’s not incremental like the dates on the calendar, in fact it feels about they same and yet one knows the clock is ticking the sand is dropping into the bottom of the glass and if one could leap forward five or ten years it would be obvious that the shit destruction has  deepened its grip.  Funny that way too, in that tomorrow is not promised.  And so the final monstrosity of feeble assisted care living someone changing the diaper or turning you over in bed may not happen.  One could have a stroke and drop dead today. Or mistake the gas pedal for the brake and run over the curb into a grocery store.  Self checkout ha ha ha. A morbid sense of humor is a monstrosity that hovers like the grim reaper, or that guy who flips a coin to decide if he’s going to end you to today.  Call it, my man, heads or tails.  This is no country for old men.  I was in a medical waiting room yesterday and the music they were piping in was so inane.  It wasn't the tranquil woo woo stuff of past days, it was unrecognizable, pleasantly upbeat garbage that I’d never heard before and hopefully never again but I suppose these sorts of visits are gonna pile up.  If I’m lucky and don't just drop. It was such a relief to get back in the car and play some, you know Beatles and stones and jimi and all my heroes of youth half of whom or more have moved on to the next world don’t be late. But hey that’s real music not the swill that spills out onto the airwaves these days.  The major agrees wholecuppedly and he knows how to titillate my palate in ways that temporarily improve my countenance and overall performance as well as my outlook on the extant day ahead.  And with that dear readers most of whom, if any are also looking down over the yawning precipice of corporal disintegration, I bid you a fond farewell, au revoir or adieu God only knows:

Dear David:

Yep. For me, the decline is perceptible from day to day. The days of thinking 'I'll get on top of this and then be back in business' are gone. On the contrary, they are on top of me. My efforts to blockade the doors with medicine are in vain for now they are coming through the windows instead, bursting through the floorboards. I do not want to be controlled by the ending. I guess no one does. I am both ready and unready. Yes, Grim Reaper, I understand--but not right now! I'm right in the middle of something. But you are correct: the Beatles help. Simon and Garfunkel. Chopin. And here in Indonesia the music is not interrupted by the chirping of Muzak, because they don't have it here. Only the roar of the madding crowd.