The siblings and their mother gathered in a circle around the family table.
One by one, they pulled items from the plastic bag they’d picked up from the hospital lobby. Their mother went first, selecting her husband’s reading glasses, devotional booklets and Bible, a reminder of their nightly routine of reading the word of God together.
The eldest daughter selected a shirt her father had worn in the hospital, as well as his cellphone, and two other sisters picked their father’s Virgen de Guadalupe prayer card and a rosary purchased on a trip to Israel. Their brother chose a ring, a nephew a pair of sweatpants and someone else the snow globe recently purchased at the hospital gift shop.