He Read Kent Haruf At 2 AM So She'd Be Drowsy When He Asked

My wife has pancreatic cancer. She was diagnosed in April. The morphine pump arrived in July. Our son James started driving up from Boston every Friday to read to her at her bedside. He was reading Kent Haruf at two in the morning so she would be drowsy when he asked her to sign the quitclaim deed. What James did not know was that Helen, in the three months between her diagnosis and the morphine, had already been to our family lawyer — alone, without telling me — and had built something that would stop him before he started. This is a story about a husband watching his wife die, a son who brought a briefcase to a hospice bed, and the school librarian who kept better records than anyone in the family. #hospice, #pancreaticcancer, #quitclaimdeed, #elderfinancialabuse, #anticipatorydirective, #vermont, #familybetrayal, #dyingwife, #hospicenurse, #kentharuf, #familytrust, #sonfraud, #latelifejustice, #dignity, #talesfromthegoldenyears