You will always remember the lasts.

His last reminder to the kids: “You can do these things yourself. Can you please listen to Mama?”

His last comment about my cooking: “It’s good, but I’m feeling nauseous.”

His last comment about the yard work: “We need to water that tree.”

Our last conversation: “What shoes are you going to wear? We need to get you new shoes. This weekend.”

His last words to me (shouted from our bedroom to the front door): “Love you babe.”

Four hours later, my brother rushed to pick me up from a homeschooling event I was hosting for a fundraiser. “You need to come now, come now.”

Stephen had suffered a cardiac arrest in bed at home while his mom was getting ready to bring him lunch. She heard him breathe his last breath. She tried to revive him. She called my dad who was miraculously home with my mom watching my kids. He tried to revive him. The firemen arrived and tried to revive him. The paramedics finally got him back after 20 minutes.

I had always been the one to call 911. I was always home when he needed me to be. And this day. On this day, I wasn’t.

I ran through the ER.

“I’m his wife. I just want to see him.”

They didn’t let us in. I heard them talking to him asking him if he can move. There were machines whirring behind the curtains.

“Clear.”

“He’s back.”

When the doctors finally spoke to us, they told us that it didn’t look good.

I was prepared to face another road block in this fight against leukaemia. I was certain he would open his eyes and look at me, just like he did as he came out of his seizure the week prior. He still had so much, so much to live for. I was prepared to fight.

I was not prepared for the end.