[ WP ] In order for a child to be born , someone else has to die . You 're right on the border of life and death , and you 're hanging on for all you 're worth . The baby whose birth is dependent on your death has to convince you to let go .

The hospital bed was comfortable under his old bones. Far too comfortable. It was like they wanted you to drift off and never wake up. He had heard the doctor talking to his wife earlier. Talking about how it was almost time to let go. Time for one life to begin the beautiful process of making way for another. Hogwash the lot of it. 
 
 He wanted to live. His heart beat on almost through pure will and spite at this point. The tug of the ether pulled at his soul but he fought it back. In the end it all made sense. At the threshold between life and death he could finally understand the grand scheme of things. One life took up so much room in the scale of the universe. And for new life to come along, one soul had to drift away from life so another could begin. His soul was aged, ripe for drifting away into oblivion. A new young soul was waiting, out there in the dark, waiting to come screaming into the world. And he hated it. This was his life. He wanted to live forever. 
 
 In that inner place he felt something change as he clung to life. The new life began to drift towards another. His life might even be spared. Straining against the ether, the old man tried to perceive who had taken his place. Finally an image formed in his mind. A woman lay in a hospital bed. Doctors scurried around her barking panicked commands as her husband clung to her, begging them to save her and the unborn child in her womb. The new soul pushed close to the living, as the living began to drift away. He could feel the love between them. The love of a mother. Of her child. 
 
 Panic shot through him like ice water in his veins. In his refusal to die, he had killed this child's mother. She was sacrificing herself because of his greed. His eyes shot open one last time. His wife was sitting next to him, her hand in his. `` It is time,'' he whispered, `` I have to go.'' 
 
 And with that, he drifted away. In the way only the dead can, he beckoned to the child. The soul drifted in and clung to life where he had been moments before. In the operating room, the pulse of mother and daughter began their steady thumping again. As he faded, he could feel the love in that operating room. Thunderous drumming love. A husband daring to breathe again, a mother holding her daughter for the first time, and for a brief second before fading away entirely, deep gratitude from the tiny new soul clutching with tiny fingers at her mother's thumb.
