After my friend died unexpectedly from a stroke 15 months ago, I wandered through my days in a fog, not able to focus on the tasks in front of me.

If I wondered if she’d been trapped inside her body unable to speak to us for that week, I’d think of her as a prisoner, stuck there in the hospital bed while her worried friends commented about the swelling in her legs, a phantom movement in her hand, her yellow nail polish.