The nurse let my husband record one more bedtime story

Dear Delyara, My husband is dying from cancer. Our daughter is six. For the last month, he has been recording bedtime stories because he is terrified she will forget his voice. Tonight, he was too weak to hold the book, so I held it while he read. It was The Gruffalo, which he has read so many times he hardly needed the page. Halfway through, his voice cracked and he stopped. The nurse brought water and asked whether we should try another day. He shook his head. “No more other days,” he whispered. Then he continued. He misread words. He coughed over sentences. At the end, instead of closing the story normally, he said our daughter’s name and told her he loved her “past every page.” I had to bite the inside of my cheek because if I cried loudly, I knew he would stop to comfort me and he did not have breath to waste on that. The recording is fourteen minutes and six seconds. Our daughter will probably listen someday and hear a story. I will hear the oxygen machine, the cup I placed down too hard, the places where his breath became shorter. We are making memories for a child before she knows she will need them. I cannot decide whether that is one of the most loving things we have done or one of the cruelest tasks life has ever given us.