To his eyes, the hospital seemed drained of all color. This is common with humans, I’ve found. They only see in bland, muted images of what really exists. I watched as the man in the bed searched the room for any life with his cold, closed eyes, hoping maybe a red jacket or a pair of green-laced shoes would somehow cure him of his disease. Maybe the nurse would make a joke that he had once heard, and maybe that joke would be his penicillin, and that nurse his Jonas Salk.

His name was Walter Higgins, and he had a liver disease that was too far down the line to stop. He was going to die. He would be survived by his two daughters, Stephanie and Rose, and his wife Susan. I watched him there, in his small room in the Hospice center, and I recalled all of the moments in his life. They were moments that he, like most, wished he had made more of, or at least cherished more often.

Most people believe that a man in a coma, like Walter, cannot process memories and thoughts. This is a common misconception. A coma is forced meditation, but it is, at its core, meditation. He remembered everything and held it in his mind—the morning he woke up in shakes and proposed to his wife while she was still in bed. She was barely awake and never more alive. Watching Stephanie, his oldest, finally run into the Ocean City water after a full day of fearing it. He wished he remembered her smile and how much it glowed that day. Even the day he lost his virginity, to a lovely girl named Jennifer, the night after their senior prom.

It had been only six months since he was diagnosed. Walter hated doctors. He cried alone in the home he had built from nothing, and he prayed for the first time in over a year. I sat next to Walter, unseen by the doctors and nurses, and explored his regrets and his wishes and the future that his Roman Catholic faith had convinced him existed.

“God, I’m sorry for all of those sins that I have committed. I can’t believe it’s all gone so quick. I’m 65 and it’s almost over. Oh God, oh God, please…” While he pleaded with God, he asked that question that everyone thinks but most are too afraid to ask when it comes down to it: is there a heaven? As he pondered, I, in my own way, pleaded with God for a painless death for Walter, or maybe some more time on Earth for him to be with those he loved. It was a contradiction—I knew that a man like Walter only found something purer after death, but when I looked at his tears and desperation, I somehow forgot about the cold hard facts. I only wanted the best for him.

I peered into Walter Higgins then, in his bland room of neutral distaste. I liked his life. He married at 21 and had only slept with two women in his life, and he never once felt that he had lost something from his youth. Sure, he had his moments and his mind was prey to desires as most minds unfortunately are, but on his deathbed, deep within his coma, he loved his family more than anything.

“Daddy.” The word was whispered from the hallway. Rose spoke softly as she entered the room, as if trying not to wake the man in the coma. I chuckled at this. It is a common thing that has always baffled me, and I assume always will. Stephanie and Susan followed Rose. They all had tears in their eyes. They had cried every day for the past week they’d visited. Most every person who I have seen, when watching a dying loved one, cries or shakes their head or pushes their hair back dramatically with their hands. They sigh and say things like, “It’s not right,” and, “Why did this happen?” These girls did not do this. They just cried because they loved Walter. They cried because of all those years of smoking and stress and a thankless job. They cried because they knew that it was meant to be. It was his time.

Now, my fellow colleagues and I all have emotion and feeling, despite what you may think. I’ve cried at movies and screamed in pain. I’ve been angry when those over whom I watch make mistakes they were inevitably going to make. The problem with knowing what is going to happen is that you can do nothing to prevent it. The torturous inevitability of life and death is unchanging, and all we can do is watch and wait. They cannot see us until the very end. It is only with their last breath that they truly open their eyes. And Walter’s was minutes away.

He was on the last of his memories now. His childhood. His mother. Her red hair and her Irish smile. His father, a blue collar cop and a drunk. Walter loved him. He remembered his first Yankee game, remembered the Mick at his prime. His memory then moved back to his daughters, and that’s where it stopped.

His eyes snapped open and he found the room the way he remembered it, colorless. He found his family and they found him, and moved towards him suddenly. Susan screamed for the nurse and ran to the side of the bed and began talking to her husband a mile a minute. Both daughters sobbed in momentary, cautionary happiness. They didn’t know what to say.

Walter smiled as he looked at them. “I love you,” he said, tears in his eyes. And then he died. I watched his eyes roll back into nothing, his skin settling into his face. Walter then turned to me, his eyes becoming the same green shade that all eyes become at this moment. He saw me and began to cry.

“Don’t be scared,” I said.

“Where do I go now?” he asked, his hands shivering and his body tingling.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Home.”

“Then that’s where we are headed.”

He looked into my eyes, and I into his. His shivering stopped, and his tingling ceased.