We thought Diane was pregnant.  We really did.  After all, we know a few things about being pregnant, and when Diane misses a period and develops a craving for hard-boiled eggs, we know what’s going on.

“OMG!” was my first reaction.  “What a soap opera!”  “Welcome to the Ringmar Family — a husband with cancer, a wife large with child, and four little girls trailing behind.”  The scene was easy to imagine: I’m laying there on my death bed when Diane comes in to show me our new-born.  “What should we call her?” she asks.  “What about Mei?” I suggest as I draw my last breath.  The End.  Fine finito.  What a badly written tear-jerker!

Well, it’s not going to happen that way.  No more babies.  No one is dying.

doskalleWhen we were in the hospital after my operation there were a few days when we were forced to confront the prospect of death.  For a while the doctors thought the cancer had spread to my lungs and my liver.  When you stare death straight in the face like that, you know you sooner or later will blink.  Death doesn’t blink.  Death doesn’t do deals.  There’s no stalling.  And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.  You’re completely powerless.

Or so we thought.  But of course there is something you can do about it.  You can do what we unwittingly ended up doing.  When facing death, create life.  Show the bastard that two naked human beings are stronger than all his well-equipped armies.  It’s the only response, but it’s also the perfect response.  Death blinked after all, before we did.

Diane had her period in the end (it often happens like that with women over 40).  And it’s a good thing too.  We’ve done babies and we’re too old for any more.  Four kids is plenty, believe me.

Although it’s a magical thought and not a medical, I’d like to think that it was our pro-life recklessness that scared away that monster.  Now he knows not to come back here and bother us again.

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