He was not talking about the end.

He was talking, already, about what could come after it.

I have thought since about the difference between the way Mark faced his death and the way I would have faced mine, and I think it is the difference between two ways of understanding what dying is.

To me, in those first weeks, death was purely a subtraction — a thing that took, and took, and would go on taking, until there was nothing left.

It took the years he should have had.

It took the daughter he should have raised.