If nothing else, my continued existance stands in defiance of every person whom has every tried to injure or undermine me.  It would be easy to simply accept death as inevitable given my condition and I certainly have some bliase views about it in some respects as a result of it, but I can think of nothing that more strongly informed how I decided to clean up my life after dad went.  I could have let the depression take me further.  I chose not to.

And everyone, however powerless they seem, or how much they tell themselves they cannot change it, has the power to make that choice.  You can bow your head and succumb, or, well, as that last line opines in better words than I can find: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."