Later his leg died.

"[Daddy] had worked in a steel mill for over thirty years and had contracted emphysema. Emphysema and fits. And a brain tumor. He discovered he had a brain tumor during the course of a hospital stay because of the emphysema and the doctors wanted to operate. At first he refused. Nobody cuts my family, he insisted. But my sisters and my brother and I fussed and fussed until he finally agreed to it.…