“You know what he said to me? My old man? That he’d always been afraid of getting old—of being scared and hurting and all by himself. Of having to go into the hospital and not being able to make ends meet anymore. Of dying. He said that after the stroke he wasn’t scared anymore. He said he thought he could die well. ‘You mean die happy, Pap?’ I asked him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think anyone dies happy, Dickie.’ He always called me Dickie, still does, and that’s another thing I guess I’ll never be able to like. He said he didn’t think anyone died happy, but you could die well. That impressed
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