A candid take on mortality and the power of friendship

They gather several times a week in the parking lot of a Vons supermarket in Mar Vista, and no subject is off-limits.

- Steve Lopez, Tribune News Service

Not even the grim medical prognosis for 70-year-old David Mays, one of the founding members of the coffee klatch. "It’s one of our major topics of conversation," said Paul Morgan, 45, a klatch regular. Mays is a cancer survivor with a full package of maladies, including diabetes, a faltering heart and failing kidneys. But since I met him almost two years ago, he has told me repeatedly that he doesn’t want dialysis treatment, even though it might extend his life.

"I get it, because it’s a lot of hours out of your day," said Morgan, a schoolteacher who lives nearby. "People think you go in for dialysis for 15 minutes before you go straight to work. But really, it's a part-time job."

His treatment would require that he visit a dialysis center three times a week, for four hours each time, Mays said.

"For the rest of my life."