I once met a woman without a face.

I knew she was going to die in a few days.

And that I’d never see again.

I held her hand and said, “You know, it’s quite a lovely day.”

It was a typical day in Southern California.72 degrees, zero humidity and not a cloud in the sky. We were sitting together in her bedroom in a small ranch house outside of LA.

She acknowledged my comment with a tiny groan. I didn’t question how she could actually made that sound without a mouth. I was sitting to her left, a bit behind her. From my angle, I could see her ear and her jawline clearly. And if I wanted to do, I could see her face (or lack of a face), but I was forcing myself to squint, so that I wouldn’t see too much.

In my imagination, her face looked like she had just been struck by a flail. One of those medieval weapons where a metal ball is attached to a handle by a chain or piece of rope. It wasn’t bloody or fleshy, just scars and a lot of deformed flesh.

I don’t remember her name, but she was in her 60s. She was in hospice due to a rare form of oral cancer (mouth? tongue? throat?) that had spread throughout her body and eaten away at her face. I can’t remember if she still had eyes, but if she did, I knew that she could not see. The caregivers had given me a simple task: “keep her company.”

There were pictures of her in the room of when she was younger and healthy. Skiing with girlfriends. Having a dinner (thanksgiving?) with family. In a few of them she had an 80s perm. She looked like a lawyer or an accountant. Someone who owned their own practice.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I just started talking.

“I recently moved to LA with my family. We like it here, it’s totally different than New York. My oldest daughter starts Kindergarten this year. Her name is Soriya. She really loves drawing.”

Another gentle grunt.

We sat quietly for another 15 minutes.

It was hard to believe that she was going to die in a few days.

[I developed obsessive mental protocols to manage the fear. When I would hear the word “death,” I would automatically think, “no death,” as if casting a counterspell. “Dying?” “No dying.” “Dead?” “No dead.” Death was too big a topic to simply ignore. It had to be banished. It had to be fought.]

It was like the opening of an original Star Wars movie. I was in a sea of blackness. The only motion came from stars moving away from me. There was no beginning. No end. Just these stars drifting away from me and disappearing.

And then an item appeared. It was a rock, roughly the size of a watermelon. And as the stars moved away, the rock got smaller. And smaller. And smaller. Until it finally turned into a speck of dust and disappeared.

At this point I’d be jolted awake in a disoriented panic. The room would be pitch black and I’d be sweating.