She weighed 72 pounds and was bent nearly double by osteoporosis and the effort to draw breath into lungs ravaged by emphysema. She had both a bad end and an unfulfilled life.

Yet even in the final days, even as her breathing worsened and a stroke took her one of her eyes, even with her oxygen tubes and her dodgy memory, even–on the worst and coldest nights, with frost on the window–the light of her shone bright and warm, wavering only a little from the sheer fatigue of winding down; her pluck and cheer and “hello, lovey” greetings and slangy “I’m an old bag” banter making her a favorite of the nurses.