I began to think about this a few weeks ago as I left a building where I’d spent the day with my mother in palliative care—the day before she died. I’d arrived in a hurry early that morning after one of my sisters called me in. My mother had had a hard night and we needed to make some decisions about dosage for morphine and other drugs, so my other sister and I had rushed to be with our family. I’d parked hastily in the dark, snow-covered visitors’ lot, and hadn’t given another thought to my car all day. Why would I? My mother was dying.