His last adventure

A good friend recently lost her father, and she shared a beautiful, poignant account of his final weeks. He’d gone in for a checkup after some discomfort. The doctors found stage four cancer, already in the bone. A few days, maybe a few weeks if he was lucky. He asked one question: how sure are you? Very sure, they said. In that case, he told them, no treatment. His daughter had some good bottles of wine. He’d rather spend his time enjoying those. Then the doctors mentioned one option that might buy him a few extra weeks or months. He asked if he’d still be able to travel, to make it back to his hometown unassisted. Possibly, they said. He said he’d try it. A couple of days in, he called his kids together and told them it wasn’t working. And instead of dwelling on that, he spent the time helping them sort out the logistics that would carry them through the months after he was gone. Next, he said his goodbyes to them the next day. To his nineteen-year-old grandson, he said that when he…