The hospital room was dim and quiet, the air filled with the soft rhythm of the heart monitor—gentle, distant, slowly fading. An 82-year-old man lay in bed, his breathing shallow, his skin pale and thin as paper. Everyone knew the truth: the cancer had spread too far, and the treatments were no longer working. But what weighed on him wasn’t the fear of dying. It was the thought of leaving behind his closest companion.
Every morning, as the nurse adjusted his IV or changed the sheets, he would glance out the window and whisper, “Ritchie… where are you, boy?”