On March 7, 2004, the family went to lunch to celebrate Anthony's seventeenth birthday. Later that day, Bert began experiencing severe abdominal pain. At the hospital, doctors diagnosed a gallbladder attack. He would need surgery.
He chose Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. The surgery was performed, but complications followed — internal bleeding that required emergency intervention. He spent days in the ICU. The source of the bleeding remained unclear. He pushed to stay longer, uneasy about being sent home too soon.
Three days before he died, Bob Falconero visited him. Instead of talking about his own condition, Bert talked about his friends. He worried about John Reilly and his daughter. He told Bob that this had been a wakeup call — that he would live the rest of his life with a new outlook, that he now appreciated the importance of his wife in his life. He said that everyone has the capability of improving. He said we should not let the pressures of our jobs taint our outlook on life.
He said that there is no perfection in this world — only improvement.
He was released the weekend of March 20–21. His brother John drove him home to Taunton. The family gathered around the dining table. Someone opened a bottle of champagne.
March 21, 2004
He died at home the following morning. The bleeding had not stopped. He was forty-seven.
He had asked to be scattered in the Charles River — the place where he walked with John Reilly and Bob Falconero during lunch breaks, where small sailboats glided in the wind and joggers moved along the paved pathway. The place he said he wanted to spend his retirement.
His family honored the wish.
"His presence in this place is now one with the continuing cycle of life. The cycle that recognizes that the tides of the harbor meet the waters of the Charles that also meet the waters at the tip of Terceira, and finally meet again at the island of his birth. His final wish would complete the circle of his life."