Today, what I want to point out is the poetry of the language. Your words are just so lovely. Time and time again, there are phrases and sentences in this story that take my breath away.So here are just a few gems that I've plucked out so that I can admire them.
The ambulance slowed to a stop, dark and silent, its billowing exhaust an ineffective smokescreen against prying eyes.
Half a century or half a lifetime – it was a matter of perspective. Depending on whether you were at the top or the bottom of that staircase.
Blood was an intriguing cocktail, and hatred added its own kind of poison to the mix. Even the most virulent cancer had a worthy opponent in that bitter chemotherapy.
The effort may have offered some small comfort to the terminal soul, but in the end it would be no more effective than a crucifix against his worst nightmare.
...he moved forward, the waning life in his arms little more than a trifle.
...struggling as much for dignity as for breath.
Maybe it was the kind of thing that was only visible through the hardened lens of advanced age.
Josef’s heart had been battered over the centuries – run through more times than he could count – but it had never suffered a wound that enough time or blood couldn’t heal. Not until fifty-two years ago. On that cool spring night, the heart that had shown signs of life for the first time in centuries had been ripped from him and left in limbo on the other side of the doors behind him.
The room was dimly lit by scattered lamps and the cool blue light of irrelevant monitors. They cast an ethereal glow on the young woman in the bed, making it appear as if she herself were possessed of an inner light.
In her written words, he heard her voice again, clearly – for the first time in decades – whispering to him all the promises of what would never be.
...the perfume of her mortal lips left forever on that page.
And each time he came back, he tried to shut that door even tighter when he left.
...a father whose final breath kissed his daughter’s hand goodbye.
And every damned day you make a choice – what part of yourself are you going to feed and what part are you going to let go?
I could quote every single line of this story, because each one is a work of art. A meticulously crafted, yet absolutely effortless-sounding masterpiece of prose. You amaze me sometimes... even though, as Lucky said earlier, I shouldn't be amazed, because you really are that good. But when I wait too long in between rereadings, the poetry gets lost in the haze of my memory. So it's almost like reading it anew when I come back.
One last thing... I love the way you bookend this story with the trains, and the city's sounds. How powerfully these words evoke the change from life to death.
And then, at the end...The steady pulse of the subway coursed beneath the calloused surface just blocks away; but here on this sheltered one-way street, the throbbing nightlife was held at bay.
Three blocks away the last train of the night rumbled out of the station beneath the frozen street, and the city, for a moment, was silent.
Alle, I hardly know how to respond. Your comment here means more to me than I can say. 
This has always been one of my favorite "children." Sometimes, things just come together in a certain way -- you find a little bit of magic that pulls the right words together somehow -- and it just works. Lately, I'm afraid I've forgotten how that happens, and having this pop back up on active topics gave me a chance to reflect on that. 
