The last blog entry described a cardiaversion for a-fib, or atrial fibrillation, and the procedure worked for a couple of days until it didn’t. On May 7, Raleigh Mann, my dad, had a friend take him to the emergency department after a night of prolonged shortness of breath. That afternoon, he had a sudden-onset hemorrhagic stroke. Though he retained his cognition, he lost the use of his right side. The therapy would have been arduous, and his cardiothoracic health not up to it.

On May 13, Dad, my sisters and I, and the medical teams agreed that hospice was the right next step. By that evening, he was installed as a guest in the SECU Jim and Betsy Bryan Hospice House in Pittsboro. It was eminently fitting that he had been banking for decades with the SECU, or State Employees’ Credit Union, and that years ago he and Jim Bryan sang barbershop harmony together.

He made his exit quietly, comfortably, glad of the company of his family. He died in his sleep at 4:15 a.m. on May 19, at the age of 87, just three months shy of his birthday and his sixtieth anniversary.

His memorial service will be held on Saturday, June 25, at 1 p.m. at the United Church of Chapel Hill. Blog readers may make donations to the choral ministry of the church or to the Raleigh Mann Scholarship Fund (#242843-J0037) at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media Foundation Endowment at Campus Box 3365, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-3365.

I will close with the old newspaper journalism symbol for “end of story.”

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