The Atlantic-For a week last month, Scott Simon, the popular radio host of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday,” stayed by his mother’s side in a Chicago hospital as she died. She ate and slept little, and spent her final nights singing show tunes with Simon and holding his hand. “We can get through this, baby,” she told him at one point. “The hardest part will be for you when it’s over.”

I know these intimate details because I, like more than a million others, followed Simon on Twitter when news that he was sharing his hospital experience went viral. From July 22 to 29, @nprscottsimon tweeted about everything from the kindness of ICU nurses to the hassle of finding something comfortable to sleep on to his mother’s tear-inducing deathbed wit.

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