another hospice worker--another of the amazing women that Charlie had seen in the homes of the dying, helping to deliver them into the next world with as much comfort and dignity and even joy as they could gather--benevolent Valkyries, midwives of the final light, they were--and as Charlie watched them at work, he saw that rather than become detached from, or callous to their job, they became involved with every patient and every family. They were present. He'd seen them grieve with a hundred different families, taking part in an intensity of emotion that most people would feel only a few times in their lives.