Dear Death,

I know you encounter so many people in your line of work. Maybe at first, the faces stayed with you; it felt personal. Maybe you mourned. By now, it's probably just a job. I'm sure it's easy to get jaded when you've been working as long as you have.

But maybe you remember my Dad.

No, he wasn't especially handsome. He wasn't particularly young or particularly old. He never conquered the world, and he didn't go out with a bang. He died a quiet sort of death. But he was good. And he was brave. He hadI the sort of quiet courage that made you forget he had been dying for three years. The battles he fought were with himself, and with the body that had betrayed him. They were the sort of battles you didn't really notice until the end, when he was fighting to hang on: to support the wife that depended on him, and the three daughters, who looked up to him as a hero.

Maybe now you'll remember him, and for a moment, it'll be personal again. And you'll mourn too. If you do, thank you.