The azaleas growing by the new hospital’s gates are in full bloom, a bright pink that makes my eyes sore.

May is my wife’s favorite month. She’s always said that May evening skies are the most beautiful, with their layers of orange, yellow and blue. Back when we were engaged, we treated ourselves to an evening out at a fancy hotel. The May sky looks just like the cocktail she sipped that night, at the bar on the top floor: a gradually deepening ultramarine, with a scattering of twinkling stars. She could have spent hours looking at it.

Last month, she was transferred to her third hospital. It’s not as small as the first one she stayed in, nor as big as the second, but somewhere in the middle.

The automatic doors open, and I step inside. This hospital interior looks like a hotel, its curtains and walls in matching pink.

I’m almost always able to keep my promise of visiting on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. I’ll pop in on other days too when I can, even if just for a half hour. It’s caused a few difficulties at work – I’ll bow to my superiors, peers, and subordinates and excuse myself early, or sometimes I’ll ask them to take on some of my workload. Some of my professional relationships are starting to feel strained, and work has begun to pile up.

Most people are kind. They’re sympathetic and ask me to pass on their best wishes when I go to see her. So far no one’s seemed to mind my adding to their workload. So when I say these relationships are ‘starting to feel strained,’ I might be overthinking it.

Whenever I tell people about my wife, they want to know what she’s been diagnosed with, what stage her illness has reached, how long she has left.

I’ve had these questions thrown at me from more people than I can count. Everyone is curious about death. They want to know how long a stranger has left. But we’re all moving toward death. It starts seeping into babies’ cells right from the moment they are born. No one – ill or otherwise – knows how long they have. It’s like that story about the god of death, who gives us each a candle. The candles are all different lengths, gradually burning out, and there’s no way of knowing how long each one is. None of us has an eternity – only our allotted time.