Everyone has a last time I saw him story. I suppose they’re not worth much. You’ll never hear a happy one, and they’re not in short supply. Everyone gets one, at some point. This is mine. My father didn’t die then, but it wasn’t too far off. The equation to get there was an acute collapse, an ER admission, a hospital stay, then weakness enough to merit two different stays at two different rehab centers.

“You have to come get me, Jennifer,” he said on the phone near the end, on one of those last calls. “You have to get me out of here. It’s hell. We’re family. This is what family does.”