Dying of cancer was not a life-changing event for Christopher Hitchens, not utterly.
Certainly the final act was, the in-the-end-sudden switch off, but until then, despite the ignobility of treatment, the actual process leading up to it left him intact.
“He was very much himself, except at times a sad or more diminished version of himself, right — literally — to his last day,” said Carol Blue, his wife, now adapting to life as “the widow.”
