Live Like You Were Dying Read Free Page B

been so grateful for anything in all my life.
    â€œDaisies,” I said, pointing to a bunch of wildflowers growing around a stop sign near the entrance of our neighborhood.
    â€œWhat?” Heather asked, leaning over the car console, closer to me.
    â€œI never noticed those daisies before,” I said.
    Turning the car to the shoulder of the road, she got out and plucked two of the flowers. Back inside, she handed them to me. “What did you do that for?”
    â€œBecause I felt like it,” she said and continued driving. “Two flowers to remind you that you’ve got two people who love you more than you know.”
    At home Malley had made a sign that spelled out “Welcome Home” in gold stars. “Do you know how many boxes of stars it took me to make that sign?”
    Right then I knew something had changed. Looking down at the scattered pieces of adhesive paper that were left from Malley’s workmanship, I never once mentioned that she needed to clean up the mess. I guess the difference was, now I chose not to speak the words, even if they ran through my mind. “How ’bout two daisies for payment? To remind you that you have your mama and me to love you.”
    As Malley twined the flowers together into a bracelet, I sat on the leather sofa that I’d bought for Heather the Christmas before last. “Did anybody from work call here today?”
    â€œNo, were you expecting them to?” Heather asked from the kitchen. The sound of water being poured into a pot rang out into the living room.
    â€œJust wondering,” I mumbled. Curious to know if the guys all showed up for work without me there, I toyed with the idea of trying to drive to the job site but gave up on the idea, knowing how bad Heather would throw a fit. How many had taken sick days? Were we still on schedule? The questions swirled around in my head until I gripped the edge of the sofa cushion, fighting to keep myself from picking up the phone.
    After dropping Malley off at school, Heather and I fought the rush-hour traffic into town. Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, we inched closer to the skyline and the approaching exit for Emory University Hospital. The tall buildings seemed bigger than usual, and I pictured them squeezing up against us, pushing out all the air until breathing was something I had to work at doing. Never letting on to Heather, I kept a steady drumbeat with the music that played on the radio. With each tap of my finger against the car door, I pictured the anxiety being knocked out of my system and rolling underneath the tires of our car.
    At the hospital we sat in the lung specialist’s office, listening as the ticking of a steel clock competed with the humming of an air vent. Certificates lined one wall, while the clock and a painting of a woman stared out from the other side of the office. The surgeon who had advised me to have the mass cut out had directed us to this doctor whose last name was as long as the degrees that framed his wall. They all claimed that this man was the best lung specialist in the South, if not the whole country.
    When he walked into the office, he smiled warmly and patted the copies of my X-rays that he carried alongside a file stamped with my name. He was an older man with a row of sparse hair that circled his bald crown like spring grass around the edges of a freshly tilled field. Tapping a gold pen against his desk, the doctor looked at me and shook his head.
    â€œThe conventional side of me tends to agree with what the surgeon told you.” The doctor raised his arm in the air like he was fighting a war. “Let’s get on with it and take this mass out.” His words rolled over us and he chuckled before shaking his head again. “But the side of me that’s been treating patients for thirty-two years says to hold off, to wait awhile.”
    â€œWhat about this thing inside of him? You’re telling us to just ignore