My husband H., diagnosed with his current cancer nearly three years ago, is now in hospice. On the day of admission, my daughter and I were sitting at his bedside and he mentioned–again–a wish he’s expressed at various times recently. There’s not much he still wants to do but he wished he could be sitting with others around a fire.

Sitting at a fire has been a favourite activity over the years, whether while camping or in the back yard of homes in which we’ve lived. He’s a good fire maker. One memorable fire was a New Year’s Eve on a very cold night in Manitoba. He was generally just as happy to be in bed on that night as up toasting the new year, but he’d had this idea to make a fire at Birds Hill Park and he surprised and pleased me with it, so off we went, dressed thickly for the weather, with a small load of wood and hot chocolate and snacks. We had a certain fire pit in mind and as we pulled near, we saw, with some astonishment, the golden red glow of burning coals. Someone had obviously just left the site. I knew that logical explanation, but it felt almost miraculous, as if lit just for us.

When he spoke wistfully of a fire from his hospice bed, I murmured sympathetically, but our daughter said, sure, she could bring him a fire, and next thing I knew, there was a beautiful fire burning on her laptop, complete with wood crackle and pop. We sat companionably around this YouTube miracle, enjoying the sight and sound of it, his wish fulfilled.