A grownup first: a brush with parental mortality

Most folks panic when their parents have their first sudden reminder of near-fatal mortality- not the everyday kind of white hair and creases and slower footsteps but the immediate, gone-in-an-instant kind. Not the kind that kills but the kind that wounds for whatever days they have left. It reminds them that death is waiting ever so patiently to steal away their loved ones. It shotguns them with guilt and grief. It makes them selfishly question the entire gamut of their own lives.

My dad had...