Somewhere in our room, between the cold dark air above and our body heat beneath the covers, there was a metaphor about the value of living, but I haven’t thought much about it since the night she heard me crying. ‘Few things mean much outside these sheets’ is all I can remember thinking, and one day even that sentiment will be gone.

She asked if I was okay just as the tears were welling in my eyes. My polite dismissal was an obvious lie, but I didn’t intend to ruin that moment in the dark, holding her — instead, I laid there with my eyes closed, nearly shaking.

In the face of grim fate, sometimes it’s a mystery how we live at all, but we find a way despite our unique awareness. Some bear it better than me, yet sooner or later we each must face the end.

Death is our ubiquitous dilemma; at least we can all find common ground in our mortality.