Thomas is dying. Thomas accepts death. It’s in this house by the seaside, the childhood home, that he chooses to wait for death. I’m with him. It’s still summer. I wasn’t aware that you could die in summer.
I thought that death always came in winter, that the weather had to be cold, the skies gray and desolate. I discover that death can also go about its business in bright sunlight, in broad daylight. I believe that Thomas will welcome it in broad daylight.
This winter, when he was in hospital, I thought that it would begin with a heaviness in the limbs, some kind of contraction that would require urgent intervention, some kind of great haste, violence. But no, it’s nonchalant, a kind of vacation, slow, a giving up to heat.
This foreseeable, expected death will nevertheless cause a cataclysm. It will affect and change all of our lives and make them take unexpected directions. It will unsettle our lives, and none of us will be able to stand in its way. This death will be an event of great importance. My brother is dying.