For months, as I’ve visited Evan as his hospice social worker, he’s been praying to die. He’s in his 90s, and he’s been fighting cancer for more than four years. As he sees it, his life has turned into a tedious, meaningless dirge with nothing to look forward to other than its end.
On this visit, though, he’s engaged and upbeat. This sudden about-face arouses my suspicions.
“You seem to feel differently today,” I say casually. “What’s going on?” He looks at me cryptically.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asks.
It’s not the first time a patient has asked me this. People can have unusual experiences when they reach the end of life: visitations from spiritual beings, messages delivered in dreams, synchroni- cities or strange behaviours by animals, birds, even insects.
“There are all kinds of ghosts,” I respond seriously. “What kind are you talking about?”
“You remember me telling you about the war?” he asks.
How could I forget? He’d traced his long-standing depression to his time as a supply officer for a World War II combat hospital.
“I remember.”
“There’s something I left out,” he says. “Something I can’t explain.” He goes on to describe one horrific, icecold autumn day: Casualties were coming in non-stop. He and others scrambled to transport blood-soaked men on stretchers to triage.
“I’d been hustling all day. My back felt broken, and my hands were numb from the cold.”
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