Dad's joy consoled my mother as she lovingly and heroically poured out her life to care for him for more than a dozen years. And it solidified my belief in the truths Dad had taught me as a girl: that the human person has an inherent dignity no disease or disability can erase and that life is a gift to be cherished, even in its most fragile forms.
A few days before he died, I found Dad sitting in his wheelchair, looking unusually alert. His blue eyes brimmed with tears when he spotted me and his arms opened wide. He smiled and said, simply, "Joy!" It was the last word I recall my father speaking to me, a fitting farewell from a man who lived joy with his every breath, to his very last. - Colleen Carroll Campbell, MercatorNet (click below for full article)
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/a_joy_that_dementia_could_not_crush/
