The room seemed to tilt and swing around me.

The air went out of my lungs and would not come back.

I knew, distantly, what ALS was, knew enough to know that it was a road that went only one direction, that there was no version of this where a doctor eventually said the word cured.

My husband.

My strong, gifted, tireless husband, who had left the house that very morning with his badge on his pocket and a spring in his step that I now understood he had performed for my benefit.

I reached out and steadied myself against the wall, and I made myself keep listening, because there was more, and I needed to hear all of it.