Don't Let Go

by Harlan Coben

“We had six healthy months and then six not-so-healthy months. I don’t call them ‘good’ or ‘bad’ months. They’re all good if you’re doing the right thing. Do you know what I mean?” “Yeah,” Augie says. “I know what you mean.” “I made sure Hank was here when Doris died. We were both with her.”

"They're all good if you're doing the right thing." I've never felt more certain I was doing the right thing than the last year of my mom's life, spending days with her, talking, going through photographs, bathing her, getting her books at the library, or a pillow that might ease those dreadful aches and pains as she died slowly. How I miss being so certain I was doing the right thing. How I miss her. Her laugh and her voice and her positivity. She was always my biggest cheerleader. I miss that too.

“We have something in common now.” Augie looks a question at him. “Well, something horrible,” Tom continues. “We’ve both lost children. I know your pain now. It’s like . . . it’s like being members of the worst club imaginable.”

That's what we used to say about Mom's ALS diagnosis.