“It wouldn’t end too quickly. The final hours passed among memories and prayers and shadows. When he called to us, we all thought we were dreaming. It wasn’t a word we could understand, if it was a word at all. It was more a gesture, a faint entreaty, a request issued from a dream. He barely moved, if he moved at all. He barely spoke, if he spoke at all, and yet the three of us rose to our feet in response to something we may have collectively imagined.”