From 2007 when I went to take care of him:

once we got him to dialysis and sat him in "his" chair, we realized we'd forgotten his teeth. He has half of them on the top, but the other half is fake and was at home, sitting on his tv tray. Along with his glasses. He still just laughs about it and hits on all the nurses. "Hello, gorgeous!" he says to all of them, regardless. "Here comes trouble!" they say when he comes in. As they hook him up, he tells me a story about 2 Patricias, one in Chicago and one in Brisbane, both of whom wanted to date him, but he was in love with my grandma and turned them down. He started dating my grandma when she was 13 and he was 17. "Good thing she didn't have a father, or else he would've kicked me clear out of there."

At home, during the day, he sits in his chair and looks at pictures of her, just like every other day since she passed. He has these great old photos: 1) Her, white dress, 1950's barrel-curled hair and deep red lipstick standing on a hill. 2) Him, jeans and a jacket over a button-down shirt, popped collar and hair like James Dean, squinting in the sun on the same hill. 3) Them, kissing in that old fashioned way, her body curving into his.

He hates wearing his flannel shirts without an undershirt; it shows the world his chest hair. "Ma loved that hair. Drove her crazy. But she was always telling me to put on a shirt if we were going out."

He's fiercely independent despite his body's failings. But he doesn't mind if I baby him.

Sometimes I think maybe I'm crazy because there's still joy in my bones, despite dire circumstances. But how else do you get through this? And what more is there but joy, quiet but firm, settled underneath the sadness.