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t m c » p u l s e | j u ly 2 0 1 7 19 — I — Terrie Adcock, a social worker with Houston Hospice, settled into her favorite chair with a sigh. Outside her home, the March sky had grown dark, but she was not yet ready to call it a day. She pulled her computer onto her lap and inserted a flash drive filled with photos of a sprightly, 10-year- old Jack Russell terrier named Pal. Dragging her favorite images onto the desktop, she started building a PowerPoint, hoping it would end up in the hands of someone, somewhere, looking for a new companion. — II — Alan Dickson was dying. He was still living in New York when he suffered a series of medical blows—when doctors discovered the steady march of cancer spreading throughout his lungs, when a heart attack paralyzed part of his vocal cords, when he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and diabetes. In January 2016, Alan's only living son, Brad, flew to Syracuse and begged his father to move out of his dirty, dilapidated home and relocate closer to family. It was a tough sell. Although he had mel- lowed over the years, Alan hadn't shed his incli- nation to push away those closest to him. He liked being alone, liked taking care of himself, and didn't enjoy talking about the hard parts of life. But Brad persisted, and a day after Alan was released from the hospital, father and son boarded an Amtrak bound for Houston. "I didn't want to push him because I know he's very independent," Brad said. "I didn't want to say, 'You have to move in with me,' because that wasn't my intention. But I needed to get him out of the toxic environment he was in." Alan moved in with Brad, daughter-in-law Grace, and their 6-year-old son, Matthew. Alan's estranged wife, Carol, was also living in the house to help care for Matthew. Carol and Alan got under each other's skin; they had separated more than 15 years earlier, because living under the same roof proved impossible. Worse, Alan's constant four-legged companion, Pal, was not welcome in Brad and Grace's home due to a history of biting. So in November, nine months after relocating to Texas, Alan moved into a small one-bedroom apartment in North Houston, where dishes piled up beside his desk and paperwork lived on a coffee table. Next to the couch he kept an old black and white photo of two children holding hands. (continued) FINAL DAYS Houston Hospice patient Alan Dickson with Pal, his 10-year-old Jack Russell Terrier, in front of his apartment in North Houston.