A Good Prognosis

These are not the final few months of my life, not the last bowl of salad I add a few spoons of tuna and mayo to. I’m not going to die on a date printed in the calendar that hangs on my fridge with cheesy pictures of Yosemite and captions like Bike to Work Day. I can sit here at the kitchen window, watching my neighbor walk down the street with her daughter without the need to join them or to hurry someplace pretty to have a last look. According to statistics I’ve got at least five years left, or ten depending on the website. Which means I can sit here and eat chopped lettuce and carrots and celery as slowly as I like as if health required nothing but belief. I watch a car go by, and then another.