In my final year of high school, my mother suddenly walked into my room and told me to take a good look on my father.

He was lying there, completely still, his face pale and waxy under the weak glow of a 40-watt bulb.

I remembered how, before I turned seven, he could still run and jump, lifting me high above his head and tickling me with his bristly beard until I burst into laughter.

But after that night he went to bed, he never woke up again.