I scribbled words in the middle of the night, as an image of childhood musical chairs came to me: you are left holding in your hands whatever you had at the moment the music stopped. Whatever you have built of your life at the moment you receive diagnosis, there it is. Your basket of food with which to create your last feast. You can’t go back into the garden to gather more. But out into the wilderness. That’s how it seemed to me. We collect experience, we connect with others, we build laughter and soul and home—so that when we need a foundation and a shelter, it will be there for us. But if
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