You liked crosswords.

You did them

quite literally

until the day you died.

Turning black and white squares into grey scribbles.

Ink smudged on your left hand

a tattoo courtesy of the New York Times.

What’s a 6-letter word for ‘sign of growth’?

you asked us during rounds.

We shrugged.

The next day–

It’s cancer you told us.

6 letters, growth.

You were right.

Twice.

We never touched.

You never held my hand

or brushed the hair from my face

But I saw the way you held yourself.

Aged fingertips dancing across delicately folded newspaper.

A woman wizened by almost a century of life

yet humble enough to ask for crossword help.

And one evening

your sterile room bathed in the honey of a Texas sunset

I watched your jaundiced skin glow gold

as I paled at the word terminal.

It was quick.

Which is good.

Because I don’t think you ever really lost the part of you

that was so

undeniably

you.

When it was happening

I wished I could tell you that I like crosswords, too.

And that another 6-letter word for sign of growth

is change.