Flashback.

Monday night. The hallway light streams into my bedroom as my dad opens my door ajar. Becca? Can you wake up? Before my eyes can adjust, I'm sitting up in bed, trying to understand the words coming from his lips. Phone call. Micah. Accident. Hospital. But we had just said goodnight. But you had just told me you loved me and would see me in the morning.

Late Monday night. A claustrophobic waiting room in the ER. Why is everyone looking so somber? Only when a doctor enters saying, "he's alive" and everyone sighs with relief do I realize how serious it is.

Early Monday morning. An eternity of waiting. When I hear the words "almost died in surgery" I put a blanket over my head and whisper "breath in, breath out" for you, for hours. I want to be able to breath for you, to somehow make this nightmare stop.

Tuesday. By now word has broken out, and friends pour into the hospital by the dozen. We sit together in shock and silence. They say you've squeezed a nurse's hand--there's hope and we cling to it desperately. If he just makes it through this night, they say, it'll be a good sign.

So I go to bed in the waiting room, only to stir awake suddenly at 4:00 am.

Wednesday. When I wake up in the morning, they tell me you began to decline, irreversibly, sometime around 4:00. Death is not the release we wanted, but at least it is a release.