From a New York Times story by Kevin Hershey headlined “Life Lessons Among the Nuns and Widows”:

When I graduated from college in Portland, Ore., eight years ago, I dreamed of taking my Spanish major and spirit of adventure and moving abroad, where I would quickly acquire a gay lover who would introduce me to new languages, foods and sex.

Instead, I moved back home to St. Paul, Minn., and into my Irish grandmother’s Catholic senior living apartment, where she and I barely spoke, and where she, at least, didn’t eat. At 90, having lived a long and healthy life, she had decided to die by starvation, and I had decided, at my mother’s request, to be there for her.