Five years ago this day I wrote that dying should not cause this much paperwork. There was a lot of it! But it was all done and all done correctly.

I have only very good things to say about the hospice organization that we worked with - they were wonderful. Five years ago today, the visiting nurse told us that the physical signs said that things were really winding down - Art was taking sips of water, he wasn't able to roll over by himself and he was hallucinating quite a bit. He had very awake moments and that was good.

"Last night" (five years ago) Art had a dream - he dream somebody was trying to take him away. He said that it wasn't bad, or scary, but it did wake him up.

"Yesterday" (five years ago), one of my best friends (we have since lost touch) came over with a photo album. She had been raped when she was 12 and had a son when she was 13; she had given him up for adoption and had never heard anything. What wonderful news! He had found her and they had met - everybody had met. My friend, her husband - her son and his wife - and his adoptive parents. For all those years - over 40 of them - her son's parents had kept two identical photo albums; one for them and one for "bio-mom", should he find her. So my friend has photos of her son from the time that he was placed for adoption - birthdays, Christmases, proms, his wedding.

"Last Saturday" (five years ago), Art decided he wanted to go to the mall. We had a wheelchair from hospice, so off we went. We went to the NASCAR store and bought Art a Johnny Benson cap and we went to the bookstore - they were hosting a group of greyhounds from "Greyhound Rescue". They must have sensed something because the dogs surrounded Art and put their heads in his lap.

We knew that things were close, the nurse had said maybe a couple of days. But we were ready - we thought.