Writing a book is solitary work that should never be done alone. The few people in whom I confided my project all warned me about its emotional difficulty. They pursed their lips, as if they knew something about the dangers of remembering that I didn’t understand. I spent solitary hours at my desk but wouldn’t have made it to the finish line without the support of these friends and colleagues who looked out for me, took me to lunch, and asked me profound questions like “How’s it going?” I’m thinking of Joel Marcus, Ellen Davis, Curtis Freeman, Peter Storey, Carol Shoun, Callie Davis, Grant Wacker, Maurice and Dotty Ritchie, Teresa Berger, Greg Jones, Don Ottenhoff, Jennifer Copeland, and Mary McClintock Fulkerson. William Wolfe, Robert Rideout, and Donald Whittier talked to me for hours about their friend Adam. Judge Frank R. Brown helped me by befriending my son and encouraging him in his work. Tracy and I were always able to call upon Bill Fulkerson, MD; Rev. Tom Colley; Rev. David McBriar, OFM; and Rev. Steve Patti, OFM. Russell Hall, MD, helped me understand the treatment of melanoma. Carolyn Richardson, Jenny Carroll, and Jean McInerney were unfailingly prompt and professional in providing trial transcriptions. My colleague Lauren Winner took time from her summer to read an early draft of the entire manuscript, offering critical advice and uncritical encouragement. A year later, Lil Copan worked through yet another draft. She did her best to help me understand what I was trying to do.
Institutional support came from Duke University in the form of a one-semester sabbatical leave. A generous grant from the Louisville Institute allowed me additional time to write. My special thanks go to Craig Dykstra of the Lilly Endowment and to James Lewis of the Institute. An additional grant from the Duke Divinity Institute on Care at the End of Life kept me working through an entire summer.
I owe a great deal to my quietly supportive agent, John F. Thornton of the Spieler Agency in New York City, and to my editor at Knopf, Caroline Zancan.
My daughter, Sarah, reinforced in me the sacredness of my responsibilities as a writer and a father. She has made me strong and made this a stronger and more honest book.
My most important readers are the four women in my family (and one of them won’t read this for years): Tracy Kenyon Lischer, Sarah Kenyon Lischer, Jennifer Mary Lischer, and Elizabeth Adam Lischer. I dedicate this book to them in the comfortable knowledge that we all loved the same son, brother, husband, and father.
Finally, I am grateful to my son Adam for not “fleeing as a shadow,” as the book of Job puts it, but for sticking with me and allowing me with his usual grace to speak openly of my love for him.