A Gift

This is a story of how one human being in adversity tries to help make another's last days brighter and happier:

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.
His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. They spoke for hours on end-of their wives and families, their homes, their job..
Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those 1 hour periods where his world would be livened by the activities and colours of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while kids sailed paper boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amid flowers of many colors.
As the man by the window described all this in detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.
Days and weeks passed. Then one day, the man by the window passed away. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window and was approved. After the switch, the man slowly propped himself up on one elbow to take his look at the real world outside. The window, he found, faced a blank wall. Surprised, he asked the nurse where was the lake that his friend had described earlier. The nurse was taken aback. "But your friend was blind and could not see at all"