a delicious kiwi.

In med school, I saw this graceful old southern lady. She had lung cancer. She spent her time sitting in her beautiful mansion on St Charles Avenue dressed up hat and all, protected from it all on hospice, waiting to die by smoking tobacco with her long cigarette holder. We didn't tell her not to smoke.

I also remember an old 98 year old black man who had never been to a doctor until he finally went and found he had metastatic colon cancer. This guy was slowly wasting away by a window in the slums of New Orleans, where he grew up. His neighbors and family would routinely stop in and visit him. We checked his vitals, and he was surprisingly hypoxic. When we asked him if he needed anything, he said his pain meds made him feel better. Just please make sure there are enough, ma'am. That's all. We didn't strap an oxygen mask on or watch the numbers nervously with a continuous pulse-ox. We asked him what he needed.

And finally, there was this one guy who was an ex-professor at Loyola who was totally alone in the world. He'd never married and had no kids. Friends were gone. We'd bring him some food and check up on him, and once when we asked what he wanted, he said "I've never had a kiwi. I'd like to try one." Then, he just laughed. We brought him a bag of kiwis on our next visit and sat together, just me and the nurse and the dying professor.. And I've never paid so much attention to what a kiwi tasted like before or after, but every time I see one, I hope my last request will be something similarly simple and satisfying.