My friend Talmadge Phillips is not feeling well. I have been dropping by his small room at a nursing home in Hartwell, Ga., to see him. Last week, during our visit, a hospice nurse appeared at the door.

I hold Mr. Phillips’ hand. It is more than 90 years old now. It is one hand of two that has worked a plow behind two mules whose names were Nell and Emma. It is a hand that has picked fat, red tomatoes from a garden in the backyard of a small white house in the countryside of Hart County. It is a hand that has leafed through a worn black Bible — a Bible that is on the bedside table of his room at the nursing home.

And it is a hand that is chilly.

The cool skin makes me think of my mother, who says as you get older, it’s harder to stay warm.

Mr. Phillips’ other hand shakes as he adjusts a paper napkin around his neck.

I think about the time only a few weeks ago when my mother grasped my forearm as we crossed a busy street in Columbia. I was surprised by how hard she held on to me.

And I am surprised, when I reach around Mr. Phillips’s shoulders to give him a hug, how fragile he has become.

A lunch plate sits in front of him on a tray. He works to chew and swallow a piece of chicken.

“I’ve been so sick,” he says, “but I have to eat.”

I want to say, “No, you don’t have to eat.”

But I do not say that. Mr. Phillips’ choices at this stage of life are still his own. Not mine.

What is mine are the times I have spent with him.

We first met several years ago when I delivered Meals on Wheels. He was always the last stop on my route. He liked me to come in, sit on the sofa and talk. We talked a lot.

About his wife, who’d passed away. About Sally, his dog. About his four-wheeler, which he rode around his farm. About the mountains, which he particularly loved. About his church and his belief in God. About me and my family.

And about my car.

At the time, I drove a small sports car with a convertible top. He told me he had never ridden in a car like mine.

So one day we went for a ride in it. We drove across the fall countryside. He held on tight to the car seat but smiled at the blue sky above us.

Before I leave his small room in the nursing home, we talk about that day.

He tells me he will always remember it.

I tell him I will, too.

Salley M. McInerney can be reached by e-mailing salley@hartcom.net.