“Don’t rush to be on the other side,” he says. “I’ll be, you know, around. Bear it a little longer. God forbid, enjoy it.”

During bedtime, he told me about the parasailing accident. My life made him realize how bountiful his own was. He accepted his brief life and death.

Rachel Salamatian is a Filipina-American writer whose work has been published or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Northwest Review, and Inklette Magazine. She lives in Chicago and works as a computational social scientist.