Gravy

No other word will do.
For that's what it was. Gravy.
Gravy, these past ten years.
Alive, sober, working, loving andbeing loved by a good woman.
Eleven years ago he was told he had six months to liveat the rate he was going.
And he was going nowhere but down.
So he changed his ways somehow. He quit drinking!
And the rest?
After that it was all gravy, every minuteof it, up to and including when he was told about,
well, some things that were breaking down and building up inside his head.
"Don't weep for me,"he said to his friends.
"I'm a lucky man.
I've had ten years longer than I or anyone expected.
Pure gravy. And don't forget it."


---Raymond Carver