My friend Abraham Rogatnick who died almost six years ago did not commit suicide. A year before he died he decided he was not going to prolong his painful prostate cancer problem. He told me he was going to die a year before he did. He gave me a wonderful Mexican papier-mâché skeleton, “I am not going to need him.”  Since then Pancho (as I call him) has been our constant and most evident companion in our dining room (the old one and the new one). Pancho is a constant reminder to me if like Abraham I will have the luxury of being able to choose when I die.  

Lauren & Pancho

 IX

THE HEART asks pleasure first,  

And then, excuse from pain;

And then, those little anodynes 

That deaden suffering;  

 

And then, to go to sleep;            

And then, if it should be

The will of its Inquisitor,

The liberty to die.

Emily Dickinson









The shutting of the eye