With only a fortnight or so to go, David’s wife discharged him, thinking it would be easier to care for him at home. They lived in a two-bedroom house and their four children came to spend their father’s last days with him. There were some good times. When the morphine was doing its job, David would be pain-free, surrounded by his family, joking, or (unusual for him) telling them how they had enriched his life and how much he loved them. That is how dying should be. And proper palliative care allows that – the space and time for the dying and the grieving to say those things they need to say, to give each other reassurance, comfort and love.