Fold My Laundry Please

I read this article by Margie Boule in today’s Oregonian, our local newspaper.  It was kind of bitter sweet, but I thought you guys might like it. 

He turned life’s pages one by one, but the end arrived too soon.

For Ralph Houston, the Harry Potter series will never end.

Last month I wrote about Ralph, an 86-year-old man dying of congestive heart failure.

When Ralph landed in the emergency room at Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center in late May, he told Dr. Nancy Karsten that even though he was in hospice care, he didn’t want to die just yet.

He said he had something he wanted to finish.

"So I asked directly: ‘What is it you’re not going to get to finish?’ " Nancy says. "And he said, ‘The Harry Potter books.’ "

Nancy tried hard to get Ralph an advance copy of the last Harry Potter novel, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," which will be released July 21. Folks at the hospital contacted author J.K. Rowling via her press agent in London.

Back came a letter to Ralph, written by J.K. herself. "I can’t tell you how honoured I am to know how much you like the Harry Potter books," she wrote. "I treasure my unashamed adult readers!"

But, she explained, the publisher would not release any advance copies.

Ralph tried to hold on until July 21, but he died Sunday, June 17, just before midnight. It was Father’s Day.

"We weren’t surprised at his death," says his daughter, Judy Rieder. "He had been told over a year ago he wasn’t going to live very long. He got a big kick out of the fact he lived so much longer."

Ralph was lucid when the note arrived from J.K. Rowling, Judy says. He loved the personal communication from the creator of Harry Potter, she says, and he enjoyed the attention he got after his story was made public.

Ralph never got to learn Harry Potter’s fate, but the letter from the author "was better than nothing," Judy says.

She and her sisters made sure Ralph was comfortable in the days before he died. Judy "can’t say enough" about the hospice nurse who provided care to Ralph.

Because he was a World War II veteran, Ralph was given a 21-gun salute before he was laid to rest last week.

He was a charming, intelligent man. He loved books. Perhaps his wish to read the last Harry Potter book kept him alive a few months longer than fate had planned.

"But the fact is, he didn’t get to read it," Judy says. "You just accept what is."