My father's last intelligible words were "I want a pill." My mother understood this request, but we could not act on it.

A year later he stopped swallowing. My mother polled the family, and the consensus was to try intravenous fluids once, to see if this was temporary. With the fluids it took him a week to die. See how hard it is to even follow someone's last words?

My brother would like to avoid that year.