My grandfather was transitioned to hospice care in mid-December, so when my parents called Friday morning and suggested that I hop a flight home that night, I did. Remarkable things happened, and I am immeasurably thankful that I was here for them.

We were with him when he passed away last night. The whole experience was at once so simple and so enormous that I cannot write about it. But there are two things I know for sure:

1. We really are bits of light, and we go out, or perhaps go on to other things. What’s left behind is a husk.
2. Sadness is not in order for this death. Not because he was a rather complicated man — which he was, until his last few days — but because he is no longer suffering and we are glad of that.