My therapist says we need to visit the day my husband died. I have to get ready for that.

He died right after the artificial heart transplant—he never had a chance to wake up. I was with him when something went wrong. They couldn’t save him. They threw me out, then after a long time brought me back in to ask me to sign things to allow them to turn off the artificial heart and the respirator. I sat there unable to do anything. They had to shut the doors and draw the curtains because I collapsed and cried on the floor. I was all alone in San Diego-he was flown out there for the surgery. His family didn’t come for the surgery, even though we knew his chances were not good.

His mother and his brother would not come. They are too “sensitive.”

His heart had been damaged by radiation treatments many years ago when the treatments were much harsher. Actually, he told me his family didn’t come to the hospital when he had his radiation treatments, including his father who was alive back then, when he was 21. They can’t handle seeing anyone “suffer.”

I’m the age he was when he died.

Our daughter was 17 when he died.

Anyway, I was just thinking about him and some of the music he liked. He loved this song - Southern Cross