Seven years before this lecture, when Neville and his family lived on El Camino, his wife told him one morning over brunch of a vivid dream: she woke, sat up in bed, felt what she took to be Neville's arms around her, and said, 'Oh, I'm so glad it's you' -- only to realize the arms belonged not to Neville but to Death itself, personified as a hand. Neville adds that on a separate later occasion she went through a period of believing she did not have long to live, and even made preparations for how her effects should be distributed, though nothing came of it.