On July 28, my wife, Carol had open heart surgery. She needed a new atrial valve, and the prognosis was that she had under two years to live without the operation.

The operation was a complete success. Textbook perfect.

On the 29'th she was lucid, doing breathing exercises and sleeping a lot. I spent the day with her.

But, on the 30'th, she was less lucid. I blamed it on the drugs catching up with her, but when one eye didn't track with the other, I grabbed the nurse.

Several minutes later, she had most of the available staff around her bed, and I got kicked out while they drained liquid from around her lung.

About two hours into a twenty-minute procedure, they called me back. They had re-intubated and sedated her.

But things were probably OK. Just a minor infection which is common in post-operations.

She was unconscious in the ICU for six weeks, getting better slowly, then collapsing dramatically. I spent each day with her, and her best friend came to spend the evenings with her.

After six weeks, she finally recovered consciousness. But she'd had several mini-strokes and was paralyzed from the neck down.

A couple days later, the nurses pumped a quart of undigested food from her stomach. Her core systems were shutting down, and there was really no hope.

I set up a laptop with Zoom so she could see her friends from around the world one last time, and on Sunday we pulled the plugs.

On Monday, September 20, with myself and a couple friends who spent the night with her, her heart stopped forever.