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33 What We Do while We’re Dying All I can think about is what’s going on in my father’s head as he rests in the hospice bed. My grandmother would have said there were angels hovering near, waiting to gather his soul. The morphine pump kicks in every ten minutes, and with his head back, the mouth gapes, showing us the space between his incisors. When he could eat, which seems like a hundred years ago, he’d take a bite of apple and separate the skin from the meat, then push the red or yellow silk through the ivory fence of his teeth. After this many days, I think that’s what he’s doing. Chewing over his soul. Preparing to slip it through the body’s swinging gate. ...

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