Flat/line: The Inevitability of Endings
- Lavavoth
- Apr 11
- 6 min read
It’s sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew. --Henry Rollins
Prescient Thoughts
I knew something was wrong months before the diagnoses. That’s right, a dual diagnosis given just months apart, underscoring that sometimes the signs arrive in such absolute and synchronistic ways that certainty cannot be questioned. It just is.
We all go through it eventually. Some desperately try to stave off the inevitability. But even if you manage to negotiate a few more months or a few more years, you know the options of survival are an illusion, part of the great denial that many don’t want to face.
If you’ve read other blog posts on my site, you will know that I have had one foot in the afterlife for decades through my relationship with Hans, my deceased lover. You may also know that this relationship, although life-altering in many positive ways, has also been extremely heartbreaking, frustrating, and alienating.
(Poetic Break)
Flat/line
Before the hush of evening,
before I gather up the truth,
death arrangements settle in like
the way one vows, "I do."
When the body meets its surgeon
and the scalpel finds its line,
I see Hans sparkle up beside me,
his hand, not theirs, on mine.
They cut away the soft terrain
that once cradled my knight,
and I awake flat-chested,
astonished, groping for the light.
Cancer orbits beneath my skin,
a microscopic, celestial mess.
It teaches me the boundaries
of flesh and of excess.
Counting, counting, counting,
the morphine drips and numbs my spine.
Through the monitor, Hans whispers,
"Du gehst bald, es ist deine Zeit." [1]
When he calls me to the threshold,
I’ll follow through the pines,
away from sterile corridors
where his essence is enshrined.
I’ll lay my body down on bark and moss,
let earth complete its trade.
No saints, no white-coat healers,
just the love we made.
He’ll lift me past the branches’ reach,
through air that smells of rain.
I’ll leave behind the name I wore,
the ache, the blood, the stain.
And in that unstitched hour,
I’ll see him, bright and clear,
Hans, my waiting angel,
"She Gave You a Little More Time"
For instance, I used to have a best friend, albeit a complicated one, who for two decades I kept returning to. No matter how much I tried to reconcile the challenges that arose, whether from internal dissonance or our personality differences, I would go back, hoping for a different experience, only to exit again and again. Before Hans came into my life officially in 2010, not a single friendship had ever been this difficult. There were gaps in contact with friends at times, and the occasional friction that is inevitable in close relationships, but I wasn’t someone who dissolved friendships repeatedly over the years. Even with the complications in that friendship, I think that if Hans had not been in my life, I would still be in contact with her.
But every time either she or I would rekindle the friendship, he would express his disapproval. Hans, in death (and when he was alive) he is direct. If he doesn’t like something, he says so. And when it came to my former friend, she became, in a sense, public enemy number one. Each time I reengaged, the duration of connection became shorter because Hans wouldn’t let up.
The last time I asked this person to be my friend again, I told myself (and her) it would be different, and I meant it. And for the first time, Hans gave his blessing. I didn’t understand then why he had relented. Maybe he realized it was hopeless to intervene, that she and I were always meant to be friends, and that it was in his best interest to just get out of the way. Still, as we rekindled the friendship, I could tell something was off. She was going through her own struggles, but she also seemed uneasy being connected to me. Within a few short weeks, I cut ties again.
“What the fuck was the point in having her in my life again?” I said to Hans afterward, frustrated by what felt like his disingenuous approval.
I felt him press against my back.
“You’ve given her a lot over the years. Despite everything, you’ve been there for her many times. Now, without her knowing, she’s reciprocated. She gave you something I could not. She gave you a little more time.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, but he didn’t answer.
Time Refracted
It wouldn’t be until mid-September that I understood what he meant.
The letter arrived in my hospital portal inbox. There on the screen, written in bold letters was the confirmation of what I had been sensing months ago. I have invasive lobular carcinoma. Although I didn’t immediately understand the full meaning, I knew what carcinoma meant. I broke down crying, an uncontrollable, tearful sob. The depth of my sadness caught me off guard. I had long wanted to return to Hans, and yet when faced with the reality that I was moving in that direction, my body reacted in a way that contradicted those imagined visions of afterlife bliss. Suddenly, the desire to live surged forward with urgency. I was still too young to die.
At first, I considered estrogen-blocking therapy, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. I have stage 2B breast cancer. But as I sat with the reality that this type of cancer does not respond well to chemotherapy or radiation, and hormone receptor inhibitors have terrible side effects, I chose not to pursue conventional treatment. Instead, I opted for a total bilateral mastectomy, removing all breast tissue down to the chest wall, along with a sentinel lymph biopsy. That biopsy confirmed that the cancer had metastasized to my lymph nodes.
I had surgery on October 17, and a month after surgery, more bad news arrived. Thyroid cancer, this time linked to a genetic mutation. I was scheduled for a thyroidectomy in mid-March, but I couldn’t go through with it. I was nearly anemic, still recovering from my first bout of Covid, and not ready for another surgery so soon. I rescheduled for early June, after my final semester of coursework.
Throughout all of this, his words kept repeating in my mind. She gave you a little more time.
It was she who insisted I get a mammogram, a screening I had always avoided and had only done twice before. Without her, I know I would not have gone. I would be here now, living my life unaware of the cancer growing inside me, unaware that it would eventually become metastatic and spread to distant parts of my body, such as the bones, ovaries, and brain.
I won’t know the staging for the thyroid cancer until the pathology report comes back after surgery, but from what I’ve read about papillary carcinoma, the long-term prognosis is generally good. That is not the case with the type of breast cancer I have.
But I’m ready. I have a strong and supportive care team. My palliative nurse and my primary care doctor both know that when the cancer spreads and I reach a six-month prognosis, they will help me obtain Death with Dignity.
Before Departure
So how long do I have?
The answer is the same as it is for anyone. Death comes when it comes. We don’t get to decide. No matter how we try to negotiate for more time, it unfolds as it does.
All I know is that after the diagnoses, I began having a consistent vision. Hans emerges from the forest on my property, riding a white horse, wearing a white uniform. I stand at the water’s edge, waiting. Around him are the other dead German soldiers I had connected with in 2015, along with the spirits of this land, and the animals and birds that have been part of my life here. I climb onto the horse behind him and we ride off, disappearing into the woods.
As for my former friend, I don’t know where she is or whether that was the final chapter in one of the most significant relationships of my life. Wherever she is, I say this:
Thank you.
Thank you for insisting I get checked. Thank you for all the memories, for the laughter and the tears we shared. And despite everything, I will hold onto that, because consciousness, unlike the body, carries on post death.
[1] German for “You are leaving soon, it is your time.”
[2] German for “here.”
[3] Poem written by Lavavoth Stuart in 2025 and edited in 2026.