Beautifully written piece. Thank you. The focus of my Dad's remaining dignity was the partial he wore. I never knew about it until he was in the hospital. The hospital removed it when he had to be intubated and left it out between surgeries. When I visited, he palmed his lower face when he smiled, like a coy geisha. My last request of the nurses was to shave him as his stewed in the steadily growing pools of various bacteria in his body after we "pulled the plug." I knew he was gone even then, but I had never seen my dad unshaven and I wanted him to leave us as the jaunty well-dressed man I had experienced every day of my entire life.