Mom died of lung disease in November of 2019, and Dad spent his last year and a half alone in the cottage they'd shared for almost sixty years. His pension barely covered the basics once her library income was gone, so he kept fixing old farm equipment on the porch for cash well into his eighties, despite a back that had been wrecked since his thirties. My own kids didn't know quite what to make of him -- he didn't have much to say about phones or college or city life, and he didn't push it. Most holidays he ate alone. He passed away in March of 2021. I found this photo tucked inside his old metal toolbox afterward, along with some handwritten notes he'd never shown anyone. I think about him more now than I did when he was alive, which I suppose is its own kind of apology.