She appeared a somewhat older version of one of the paramedics who arrived at the house the night my father died, though it was unlikely that anyone would go from being a paramedic to being an employee at a resort that had seen better days and was, in fact, in foreclosure. Though perhaps she had accumulated a record of not saving anyone and had lost her position as an emergency responder.

“Do I know you,” I asked. Or maybe it was “Have I seen you before?” because I had never known her, even if she’d been the one to feel my father’s last breath leave his body. She threw me a dismissive look and returned to her station to greet and seat a party of four, whom she’d evidently been expecting as they had planned ahead and made a reservation.

My point is that however fortunate your life or—considering the myriad grotesque ways one can depart from it—your death, it’s usually strangers who have their hands on you at the end and usher you down the darkened aisle. Or rather that was one of my reflections as I waited for my friends with whom I would commence a night of serious drinking.