James was sleeping when I walked into the room, taught skin—freckled and dry—stretched across his bones. His head rested back on a deflated pillow, mouth open as his breath pushed in and out and over his teeth. I pulled the one chair in the room from against the wall and scooted it right up next to his twin-sized bed, gently allowing the heaviness of my body to settle onto the wooden seat, holding my breath to prevent the chair’s inevitable creaks and groans.

His son’s voice sliced through the air from the doorway, “Want me to turn the TV on?” he asked.

“I’m okay, thank you,” I replied. I couldn’t imagine adding that kind of noise to the space, to James’s sleep.

His son, Lance, had asked me to sit with James while he ran to the grocery store. A few weeks earlier, doctors deemed a tumor they had been observing in his neck inoperable after it had ballooned out of control, its cancerous tentacles dangerously creeping into his neck, brain and spinal cord. In a snap, James was given a death sentence.

I sat in the stillness while dust, made heavy by the distant scent of cat urine, hung low in the air until the cat traipsed in. Happy to give my hands something to do, he rubbed back and forth across my legs, thrusting his head into my hands, tail twitching, purr rising. The vibrations from the sudden action in the room were just the song the low-hanging particles needed to stir them into dance.

“He likes you,” James said, as the corners of his mouth curled upward into a smile.

“He is friendly,” I said, smiling back at him. “How are you feeling?”

He timidly pressed his shaking left hand against his neck, cupping the large tumor as his face grimaced.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“A … a … a little bit,” he said.

I asked if I could refresh his water or fetch him anything at all, and reminded him—as he began inching his body closer to me and the edge of the bed—that he needed to stay safe within the confines of bed until his son returned. As he relaxed back onto his pillow and I helped tuck his arms under the covers, our eyes locked. I could tell he was trying to access words to share with me, but they were just far enough away to make them impossible to extract. All of my initial apprehension and uneasiness melted away as we smiled at one another … and it felt as though we launched right into a profound conversation, absent of words.

“You … you, you’re very pretty,” he said as his cloudy blue eyes sparkled.

Blushing, I thanked him for his kindness. He shared the sentiment with me at least 10 more times as I asked him questions about his life he couldn’t find the answers to; so we mainly stared and smiled at one another. Our wordless “soul talk,” as I came to think of it, was eventually broken by the commotion of the front door opening and Lance pushing through with arms full of bulging plastic grocery bags. James shooed him away as he walked into the bedroom with the same hand that had cupped his tumor earlier in our visit.

“How did it go,” Lance asked.

“He’s quite charming … and we enjoyed each other’s company, I believe,” I shared. “He told me I’m very pretty many times.”

“Did you fall in love, Dad?” Lance asked as James beamed. They thanked me for the time and James spoke the words “come back anytime” as he stretched his arm toward me, reaching for my hand. I clasped both of my hands around his as he pulled me in closer and I leaned over his bed. “Thank you for this time together, James,” I said as the corners of my eyes heated up. “Please rest well and take good care of yourself.”

“Okay, okay, Dad, it’s time to let the goddess go home,” Lance said.

I teared up as I walked next door to my house, revisiting the initial apprehension I felt when Lance had shared James was “on his death bed” and asked if I could help him out by sitting with him for a while. I don’t know when I’ll go back to sit with James next, but I know it will be second only to the first time we shared together. It never ceases to amaze me how swiftly humans can deeply connect, with or without words, with or without history or prior intimacy—as long as we are open to connection in the first place. And I wonder: Is there a greater gift to give or to receive?

We are Spokane Coeur d’Alene Living magazine, and we are Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. Please find me on Facebook or Twitter—and hop over to “like” the Spokane Coeur d’Alene Living magazine page—to stay connected between press dates, and to share your thoughts, stories and life in real time. Wishing you all the gift of beautiful pockets of human connection in, perhaps, unlikely places. Stay open to others … and it shall be unveiled to you, time and again.

My best,

Stephanie Regalado

stephanie@spokanecda.com