In the past several weeks, after his diagnosis of brain cancer, I’ve watched the life of Ed and Carol Gulley’s life go to pieces right in front of me.They are a farm  family, and a close-knit family, and they have all pulled tightly together to help each other – and Ed – get through it.

Ed, a powerful and active man, is now almost completely confined to a hospital bed, he has little or no use of his left side, and he spends much of the day asleep. He insists that he is in control of this cancer, and is at peace with it.

He says he knows where this is all heading, but he is not ready to go, and he say she is not yet in any pain and is not suffering.

I take him at his word. One of things we can still do together as friends is talk about creativity and Ed’s burgeoning life as an artist, cut rather brutally short. But he is still going. He sketches during the day, he  writes poems every day, they are his messages to the outside world, his creative spark burns brightly, he is not willing to let go of it.

It is, I think, his last testament to the world.

Today I stood over him as he used his good hand to sketch some small apples on a tree, a sight he has been seeing his whole life. Tonight, I’m putting three of his sketches up for sale. They are below. If you want one, please e-mail me at [email protected]. I will sell them in the order the three e-mails are  received. Ed says he wants to do more.

When I get the e-mails, I’ll send payment instructions., I can’t promise to give each person the sketch he or she wants, or  answer all of the messages, it depends on how many there are, and there are only three sketches for sale. Here they are: