Cancer Diary: He Stopped Talking
Snyeshka, who ironically died of cancer shortly after, with Carl in hospice. Near the end, Carl dozed a lot. Even when he was awake, he was not talking. By his side at nearly all times were two of our cats, Happy Cat, who was pretty well known as Carl's cat and was actually at Carl's feet when he died, and Snyezhka, shown above with Carl, who spent much time with him during his very last days--as if she knew. (They say cats can sense death.) Since Carl could not or was not motivated to talk but we were pretty sure was aware of what was going on (other than during his long dozes), we did the talking in order to maintain communication as much as possible. There is a lot of medical evidence that hearing is the last sense to go, so we counted on his being able to hear. Once in a while, he confirmed that with a tiny laugh or a small. We had friends, colleagues, and authors whose books he designed send their memories of how he had made their lives better. I read those to him. One o...