STORY BY KEN BUDD ILLUSTRATIONS BY KUMÉ PATHER

The Final Moments

26

On the obligation to prevent people from dying alone

T

he woman is dying. She’s 78, though she looks younger. I don’t know her, and

I know little about her aside from her name, her career (she worked for the

U.S. Postal Service) and her faith (she was an associate pastor at her Baptist

church). I stand by her bed in a Springfield, Va., nursing home, noticing the

religious knickknacks on her brown nightstand — the porcelain figurine of

Jesus washing a disciple’s feet, a wood cross emblazoned with a quote from Proverbs: “She

is clothed in strength and dignity and she laughs without fear of the future.”