From Greg’s account of Tad’s last day:

Later our friend Carl who I had texted to come to the house quickly told me that — while I was conferring with the nurse in the living room Tad —despite all of the heaving, the nausea, the unbearable pain, the difficulty speaking— looked at him and with gestures and words said: “I (pointing to his chest) am OK (making the OK gesture with his fingers) to die (moving his hand across his adam’s apple). How is Greg?”

I find it hard to put into words quite why that paragraph hits me the way it does, but it captures Tad’s spirit very vividly for me somehow. I can so very easily see Tad doing that, and it makes me choke up and smile at the same time.