Hospice gave me a little blue book explaining some of the physical changes I might see as Dave was dying. But there were so many things I never expected—and so many times during those final days when I found myself asking, ‘Why didn’t anybody tell me this?’

Nothing could have prepared me for what it was like to watch the person I loved die, or for the way those last days would replay in my mind afterward.

There are parts of witnessing death that we simply don’t talk about.

Maybe we should.