It will be two weeks tomorrow since Jim died, my hands cradling his head, six months and twelve days from the day we met. As it happened, the end came so quickly that there was no one else there. People say sometimes you can feel the spirit leave the body, but I never did.

It was an unusual situation. We’d been dating about two months when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and the prognosis was never good. He gave me “permission” to walk away, but I just kept hanging around until it was impossible to go. Now and again he would ask me, “Where did you come from?” But what could I say? I only lived fifteen minutes away.

So many questions. Who was in need? Who was sent? I know it was a comfort to him having me there in his last months, and I believe when he passed over to the other side, if there is an other side, he did so peacefully. In the week that followed, I spent a lot of time with his kind, wonderful family, went to the funeral and the cemetery and Shiva. Now there is a new normal. And still I find myself asking: Where have you gone?