He has terminal cancer but has not told his family. He is in mourning for his wife of 50 years and is haunted by the horrors of war when he killed a man but saw the work of a battlefield surgeon that inspired him to become a surgeon. Ben knows nothing can be done about his illness, that his death is inevitable. So, with the clarity of impotence, he decides to end his life to save himself, his daughter and his grandson from a grim, lingering death through cancer.