I'm at her bedside in Hospice Austin's Christopher House, a place where the stuff we try not to deal with piles in heaps and waits for takeoff. My own father died before I could say goodbye. A pre-dawn phone call. Speeding down the highway to the hospital. Lots of waiting on hard cushions as he lingered in a coma. Silence. Maybe that's why I'm here.

I'm one of nine writers and artists selected to spend time with the terminally ill in the cozy Christopher House, where fresh roses rest on tables next to a library of videotapes and paperback murder mysteries. In the back wing, 15 private rooms with tiny refrigerators, comfy couches and regulation hospital beds house people on their way out of this world.

My mission is to report back to you. Here goes: Patients range from infants to the elderly. If they are afraid of dying, they hide it well. Yet even the most average among them offers heavy lessons to us.

A war vet's best moment was in Vietnam when a doctor helping a pregnant woman barked, "Get over here and help." The soldier scurried to the bedside and did what he was told. "It was coming out so slow, until it was time to pop," he said, his eyes lighting with the memory.

Most folks who check into Christopher House will die within the week. My new friend's demise takes months. I'm not sure if it infuriates her or gives her a secret sigh of relief.

Our first meeting shocks her. I'm here to learn about death? She'd just like the words back, the ones the stroke stole from her still-sharp mind and tongue. Consonants slip off. "Asters? No. Masters." Entire words ooze into the distance. "Stone, zone . . . something." Her eyes scan the room for clues. A framed portrait of Jesus smiles from the wall. She is a devout Catholic and it gives her comfort when the words evade her.

She turns her gaze on me. "Ah! Does that make you angry? It will some day."

The next Saturday between visits to the Christopher House, my sister hands me a tiny sculpture of an angel; I regift it to my friend. She squeezes her eyes shut and tears seep out. She wears the angel on a chain around her neck through the full countdown.

Since our first visit, she has had an episode. Her fingers turned blue and sweat coated her body. She knew her heart was failing, so she called her family together and told them the facts: I am going to die. Get ready.

She sees figures in the room, young men dressed in white. Her husband of more than 50 years has the OK to remarry. After all, she's seen to the repair of his teeth, installation of new corneas. He's all the rage at the assisted living center and a darn fine writer.

"There's a couple of girls over there, hon." She grips his fingers through the hospital bed's handrail. "If they've got money, marry them."

Like my father, she is of the World War II era. It shaped their lives, their loves. She met her soldier husband in the North and relishes that night in a New York City bar when their gang took over for an inexperienced bartender. They laughed and sang all night. She followed her husband home to Texas, but never stopped feeling like a Yankee outsider. "I'll Be Seeing You" was on the radio every Sunday.

"People used to sing," she says. "It was so pretty and soft."

She is asleep the next few times I stop in. Her mouth hangs open, her breathing is labored. She sleeps all day, stays up all night. Drinks a capful of bourbon to ward off pain.

I see her one last time. Her face is ashen and impatient. All of the relatives and friends have been called. Peace has been made, memories relived. What's the delay?

"There's a hastiness," she tells me. "I want to go, but I don't want to go."

As I get up to leave, she grips my hand and her eyes fix on mine. In them I see the sexy war bride, the mother, the pains and joys of a life well lived.

She stops taking visitors. Every day I check obituaries in the newspaper. Nothing. I know the delay angers her as much as the too-sudden loss of my father did me.

The night before she finally dies, her family has a party. I like to imagine they drag into her room the brittle Christmas tree her husband had refused to disassemble when she got sick. Her kids bring a cake and sing John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith. They tell stories, force smiles while she nods in and out. She looks at them and says, "I've got to get ready to go. Time to go."

I think of my father's quick and wordless passing, and hope they realize just how lucky they are.