975. This is the twelfth month I've been without him. There hasn't been a day that I haven't thought of him. There hasn't been a week that my eyes haven't moistened for him. He didn't have to die, you know—the hospital just let him die. He's an old man and he's lived a long time, they thought. So they ignored him that entire day until he went south in a flash. How much the chest compressions must have hurt! But the pain of the compressions was a slap on the wrist compared to the pain he must have felt, as the beloved father of eight, dying alone. He died before Mom's daily afternoon visit. She had been anticipating his coming home. Instead she had to deal with his going home. If only we could see him again, just one more time, to make up for where we weren't that day. 3.6