While clearing the dinner table tonight, Nilay burst into tears. As I hugged him and asked him what was wrong, he showed me the box of cookies that Sherebanu had so lovingly sent for the boys.

He said he was going to hide the box from dadu. But then he remembered that there is no dadu any more.

My dad loved sweet food. He had diabetes, liver cirrhosis, and his kidneys weren't doing too well either. Yet he ate sweet food all the time. The kids got used to "hiding" all the goodies, not so much to save the goodies from him as to save him from the goodies and their ill effects.

All of last night, my sister and brother-in-law monitored his sugar. His nurse gave him multiple doses of insulin. In the middle of all that, around 3am in the night, he snuck up to the fridge and swigged an entire bottle of packaged sweet lassi.

He may have died. But he died swigging the good stuff.