She had been a robust child.

Years later, however, she found herself prone to serious illness and disease. On Christmas several years ago, I nursed her through pneumonia, strep throat, and a host of other dangerous afflictions.

As terrible as it all was, watching her die (It was inevitable. If not this illness, then surely that one, or that one.), we benefitted handsomely on, as we came to call it, PharmDay. We would put on our best farmerwear – a hard thing for a couple of middle-class snobs to accomplish – and head to the pharmacy. The whole thing was terribly fun.

Back at home, we would dump her medicine on the kitchen table and play with it. Small pills became stones from which we erected mighty pyramids; other pills became grenades as we tried to blow each other up. Still others we simply abused with alcohol.

She maintained until the end that she would rather spend her time this way than filling little boxes – one for each day of the week – with medicine.

And so we did. And one day she overdosed on a little green drug.

I tried carrying on the tradition without her. But it just wasn’t as fun.