There’s no question about it. Bob was not planning to die. From the unopened packages of shirts, socks and underwear, he was planning on another, oh, 50 years. He didn’t like to run out, and he was always prepared.

Once, I told him a girlfriend’s husband carried his glasses prescription with him when he traveled just in case his got broken. “That’s nothing,” Bob told me. “I take an extra pair.” And with that, he produced them in a brown leather case, together with a travel-size bottle of spray-on cleaner.

Cut down fully supplied, he left behind little piles of white plastic handle bags full of drugstore goodies and in the closet, nine unopened bottles of mouthwash. Vanilla Mint.

I never thought mouthwash would make me cry.