The tender, loving grip on my hand as my face is cusped brings me back to a different time for but a moment. That loving and caring, yet guided and concerned grasp was the same one my parents had on me when I was a child. When I first learned how to walk, when I hurt myself, when I felt sad. Somehow, over 70 years after the first, most tender hug I've ever received at this very hospital, I lie here feeling the same way I did then: Loved. Although it isn't my mother who's holding my hand. It's my nurse, caring for an elderly woman as if she were a toddler. We start and end life all the same. Helpless, small, naïve, so fearful yet seemingly all-knowing and confident. As I lay in my bed, I feel like I'm getting tucked into bed with a kiss and a goodnight story. As the nurses come and go, I feel like a child meeting new people. As my brain crumbles and my body deteriorates, I feel like I am once again new to this world. And although I am dying, it feels almost like a rebirth. Concerned gasps and glances remind me of the times I fell in-front of family, and it makes me laugh. I can feel the world slipping away from me, but in my soul I feel a childlike joy. Excited for what the next day will bring, I shut my eyes tight and hope that the bed bugs won't bite. And with a final sigh, I hear the same weeping I heard when I was first born.