" I remember one of the last things Mother said to us, one of the very last things. In my mind, it has become the last thing, and maybe it was.

She was lying on the cedar frame bed in the back bed-room in the early summer, with the bed moved over right against the window. The window was open to let the breeze and birdsong and sunlight in, the light rushing in through the lace curtains. She had lost a lot of weight and had had a hard time, but was never more beautiful in the way that there can be nothing more beautiful than dignity.

"I've seen a lot," she said, and smiled, and it was not an act for us, it was not a thing said for our benefit. She was just saying it, and smiling. She was just brave, was all. "

― Rick Bass , The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness