Of course I tensed up when he touched me. To be with him was to hurt him-inevitably. And that's what I'd felt as he reached for me: I'd felt as though I were committing an act of violence against him, because I was.

And then we were kissing.....The space around us evaporated, and for a weird moment I rally like my body; this cancer-ruined thing I'd spent years dragging around suddenly seemed worth the struggle.

Caring doesn't sometimes lead to misery. It always does.

They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing.

That's the mystery, isn't it? Is the labyrinth living or dying? Which is he trying to escape---the world or the end of it?

One of the pitfalls about writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these wise-beyond-their-years creatures or these sad-eyed tragic people. And the truth is, people living with cancer are very much like people who are not living with cancer. They're every bit as funny and complex and diverse as anyone else.

You're not going to impose the patriarchal paradigm on me.