So David thought during his dwindling moments in Intensive Care. In his morphine stupor, he couldn’t communicate his despair to the nurses who with stoic skill kept watch on his IV pumps, urine catheter, heartbeat and blood pressure monitors. He probably wouldn’t have told the nurses anyhow, wouldn’t have demeaned the purpose that they had managed to find in life, their solace in alleviating pain.

Nor could he have told Sarie, his sweet wonderful child of sixty-one, that she shouldn’t grieve for his pain and impending death because he didn’t grieve for himself. The pain didn’t matter. It was no more than he expected. And as far as his death was concerned, well, that would be a release that over the years he’d many times considered granting to himself, though for the sake of his loving wife and daughter, he’d rejected that assault to their sanity.

Sarie stood over him, her face contorted with exhaustion, sorrow, and fear, using cloths soaked in ice to wipe his fevered brow just as he and Donna had with equal primal stress and devotion wiped Matthew’s brow. Full circle. The daughter become the parent. The son become the father. And what did it matter? Love, in the end, was the greatest hurt. To love was to suffer loss-the more profound the devotion, the worse the grief. The noblest human emotion was fated to end in the greatest hell.

So David did his best to smile around the irritating oxygen tube crammed down his throat and to squeeze his daughter’s hand in thanks. After all, he and Donna had raised her to value loyalty and compassion, and there was no need, at this late date, to disillusion her, to signal that he’d been wrong, to warn Sarie that love in the end brought loss and pain.