Match Books
When my father was in the last hours of his too short life, my sister kept touching the tip of his nose. When I questioned her about this unconventional show of affection, she explained that the tip of the nose is the first to go cold when a person is about to pass away. I don’t know whether she was just showing off her experience with dying people, or preparing herself for my father’s impending death. In my befuddled mind it came across a bit like checking to see if the potatoes were done yet.
Ever since, I’ve worried about it, because the thing is, I have a cold nose most of the time on account of me having a poor blood circulation. So it would come down to this:
if I were to be on my way out, the last thing I want is for my sister to keep touching my nose to see how close I am to sniffing it, knowing that that is what she’s doing. I don’t want to be on my deathbed shouting
“I am not a potato!”