As winter settled in fully, with bitter cold winds and occasional snow, Kat was sleeping with the aid of the medicine far more than she was awake. Spending time with Kat had now become more an exercise of simply being in the room and watching her sleep. Still, Henry found some peace in that. Just observing the evidence of her breathing soothed him. And strangely enough, the evidence of her increasing thinness and pallor helped him feel a little more prepared each day to be able to let her go. He pondered how it might be to lose a spouse very quickly to an illness or accident that offered little or no warning. In such a case, the grief would surely be overwhelming and consuming, and that kind of adjustment seemed impossible in his mind. But to lose a spouse—or any loved one—slowly to disease in this way was an entirely different experience. He had grieved deeply at his first awareness of the disease, then later as he’d struggled to accept that it would take her life. He had been warned by the doctor—who had become as much a trusted friend in this journey as he was a wise medical advisor—that the actual shock of death could likely send loved ones into a new level of grief, but it generally tended to be briefer and easier to overcome for people who had been coming to terms with their grief for many weeks or months prior to the death.

Henry prayed more than he ever had in his life, and as a result he felt closer to God than ever before. In his darkest moments he could always eventually find a glimmer of light in an inexplicable warmth that soothed him from the inside out. He knew in his heart that this was God’s plan for Kat and that her spirit would live on in a better place. He found a peace with this knowledge that made it possible to believe he could let her go and find happiness again being a father to their child and a part of her family as a brother, a son, and a nephew. Still, he had many moments when his grief felt raw and unbearable. He couldn’t fathom his life without Kat in it and didn’t know how he could even function without her there at the center of everything—even if that meant his simply being at her side while she remained mostly oblivious in medicated slumber. As long as she kept breathing, as long as he could put his fingers to her throat and feel her pulse, he felt connected to her, and his love for her filled him. The very idea of her breath and heartbeat leaving her body, of having her turn cold and being put into the grave, sometimes made him feel physically ill.