My Heart
My wife lay dying in the hospital bed and I could not leave her side. We’d been so careful. We knew her heart was bad. We knew. We didn’t try to get pregnant. We tried hard not to. Birth control, condoms, rhythm—all of that. Everything but abstinence. That wasn’t possible. We were so in love that keeping away from each other was almost painful. Through the years when our work schedules didn’t co-inside and we had to schedule “dates” and the years we spent apart and spent only a week together every three months—we were so in love, beyond the depths of anything I’d ever dreamed possible. She was part of my soul. My very being would crumble without her. She was all I had and all I wanted. Now, she was about to leave me but not for want of staying. She needed a new heart. If it were up to me, I’d rip my own chest open and take the beating muscle from within me and give it all up to her. Just to keep her breathing. Just to keep her alive to love me. But I couldn’t. No matter how much I want...