Even my wife agrees. She tells the story of finding him on the porch all alone one night, staring at us through the picture window, as if he were already on the Other Side. I heard all this in the days just after his death, as we gathered around the kitchen table. At first I was puzzled by the fact that everything that was said about my father seemed to fall into one of two categories: the pattern of his drinking, or the progress of his deterioration. For days this went on, as relatives and neighbors came in and out, nodding and clucking, adding their own examples to one or both refrains.
^^^	<---|--->	<|>