...it is lamentable that more often than not the final image an individual has of a loved one is that of a once proud and noble figure now ravaged by age and free radicals, helplessly withered and small beneath the sterilized sheets, hopelessly foreign and unrecognizable amongst the antiseptic smells and technological precision of uncaring machines and monitors...better, I say, to take one's leave when summer wanes and autumn's approach is perceived, while the roots still seek sustenance with fading vigor on home soil- instead of during the dead of winter when translucent tubes supporting a pocky existence are all that anchor one to a synthetic, inhospitable hospital environment.