“Go get my wife,” he said to the nurse. When my mother came in, he pressed the button on his morphine drip. “Any last words?” my mother asked. “I hope this was all worth it,” he replied. For the rest of his life—around four hours—I sat on the chair and cried while my mother got drunk in the kitchen, ducking her head in every now and then to see if he was dead yet. Finally, he was. “That’s it, right?” my mother asked.
