For new readers, who may not have read my author notes, this is written in a conversational way as I talk to my deceased husband. When I refer to someone just as "you" this means I am addressing my husband, Evan.

Although it seemed our lives would just be more of the same for the near future without a lot of change, when we turned to the television for news, it was apparent something new was always happening. Let me remind you of a couple of things going on in the world outside our immediate family.

In January of 1997, Bill Clinton began his second term of his presidency with a 62% approval rating. His affair with Monica Lewinsky had been going on for a while, but the public wouldn’t learn about it for another year. That will be the story for another time.

Something surprising and tragic happened in March that had us all in shock. The Heaven’s Gate cult which had its beginning in 1970 under the leadership of Marshall Applegate, a fired music professor at a university in Texas and Bonnie Nettles, a nurse he met at a Texas Hospital. In late March, he and 38 of his followers were found dead from suicide in their bunks at their commune in San Diego, California.

Applegate’s cult had once attracted at least 200 members. Applegate and Nettles claimed to be devout Christians and insisted their members give up drugs, alcohol, sex and all vices. The pair believed themselves to be the two witnesses spoken of in Revelation who would be sent to lead people to a higher level. They convinced themselves they had arrived on a spaceship as aliens from another planet and had their memory erased so they were able to live for a while as normal humans. 

The group considered themselves to be "the evolutionary level above humans". They used the term TELAH to describe their cult. Their followers they attracted supported the commune by designing web sites. Nettles transitioned unexpectedly through the death of her human body. Applegate believed they had reached the time line in which their spaceship would return, but in order to be taken up to join it, they would need to first leave the empty shell of their bodies behind. The indoctrination was a combination of Christianity, conspiracy theories, science fiction, and mysticism. It isn’t so different from some of the things you find on the internet today.

The news of this tragedy was still on our minds when Dad awakened us one early April morning having a high fever and apparently in a lot of pain. I managed to get him cleaned up and dressed. We took him to the nearest emergency room where they treated him for a bladder infection and sent him home.

By afternoon, he seemed much worse, and this time he was too weak for us to handle him. We called for an ambulance, and they transported him to Memorial which I felt was a better hospital. It turned out what he had was much worse. The infection had gone septic and was affecting his entire body. He was also suffering from pneumonia.

They admitted him, I stayed with him until late that night. I regretted not spending the night, but I was totally exhausted, and I felt he would be watched throughout the night. When I returned the following morning, he had suffered a mild stoke during the night affecting his throat and one arm. The doctor indicated he wouldn't live much longer. I was upset with him for saying this with Dad listening. Now, Dad wasn’t allowed to have any liquid because they believed he would aspirate. As soon as the pneumonia cleared, the hospital wanted him released to a nursing home.

This wasn’t what I wanted for him, but knowing I couldn’t lift him, I made arrangements with the home across the street from the hospital. I told him as soon as he was better, I would bring him home. He was put in a double room which was something Dad hated. He was there less than a week. I went each day to visit him. One day, I fed him the soft food he was being given. I hadn’t been home long, when we got a call saying he’d thrown up and aspirated. They were sending him back to the hospital emergency.

This is painful to write because the next few hours were a nightmare. The emergency workers decided he was dying, and they did nothing to help. He was left on the hard emergency bed with no one there but me for hours while he struggled to breathe, unable to control his bowels. The pacemaker kept him alive and conscious. You were there, but I was alone in the room telling him I loved him and he kept whispering that he loved me too. I was begging for someone to do something, and at midnight, they decided to return him to the nursing home.

The staff at the nursing home were furious at him being returned in such bad condition. Once he was back in the room with another patient, I tried to sleep in a chair in the lobby. Christi, who always ran behind, showed up just after Dad was brought back to his room. She and a nurse were in the room with him as he passed away. She let out a scream that alarmed everyone in that wing of the home. You and I rushed down the hall to see her being carried out by four nurses in a semi-collapsed state. They brought her to the dining hall where all of us tried to calm her. I had no chance to grieve the loss of my dad.

I made arrangements for him to be transported back to Mississippi to be buried next to Mom, and you and I went home. We had barely gotten home when we got a call saying they couldn’t transport his body until someone brought them his teeth. Since Dad seldom wore them, I had forgotten they would need them. You took pity on me and told me to try to rest, you would make the long trip back to the hospital with his teeth.

We realized this would mean some changes would be taking place in our lives, but in that moment, I needed time to regroup. I was so thankful for your understanding and willingness to be there for whatever I needed. I couldn’t have gotten through those days without you.

• THIS IS US:
  Evan is 68 and a retired drafting supervisor from Chevron Oil.
  Beth is 59 and has given up working in the printing field and is home taking care of her disabled father.
  Carol is 33, recently divorced, and a nurse, working at a hospital in Chattanooga and living in an apartment.  
  Don is a twin. He is 33, a recent graduate of Life Chiropractic College.
  Christi is Don’s twin. She is working as a receptionist at a chemical company and doing massages on the side.
  Kimberly is Don’s wife. She is a nurse working at a Chattanooga hospital.
  Lauren Elizabeth Jane Shelby is Don and Kimberly's baby, age two.
  Connie is our youngest daughter. She is twenty-three. She is a senior in college and also working part time.
  Charlie is Connie's husband as of June 30, 1996. He works as a lab tech in Memorial Hospital.