The First Day of the Rest of My Life as a Widower

My wife’s mysterious death, and what came next

Do I start with the part where I am paralyzed, back pressed hard against the living room wall, shrinking into it but watching as if through a lens zooming in and out of the action, near then far, all of it taking place no more than five, six feet in front of me, firemen pushing the coffee table aside, books toppling, paramedics rolling my wife onto the floor, one tearing open her blouse and searching for a heartbeat, another pressing her chest up and down as a second team races in and a woman takes over, flips open a black bag and inserts a tube down my wife’s throat, everything happening in hyperspeed, while I stare at my wife’s face gone pale and the room going gray and grainy as an old photograph?

Or, do I start 10, 20 minutes earlier, impossible to track the time, when I come into the living room and even from 20 feet away I can see that something is terribly wrong, my wife, Joy, on the couch, beckoning to me, mouth open but unable to speak, her eyes large and terrified, and I rush to her side and she grips my arm and I pull her to me and frantically attempt to dial 911, trying to punch in three simple numbers but can’t get them right, as my wife gasps for breath and I say over and over, “Take it easy, honey. Breathe, hang on, you’ll be okay,” trying hard to sound comforting and rational, as a voice comes on the phone and I say, “My wife, she’s not breathing,” and the woman on the other end, speaking calmly (how is that possible?) asks my name and address and I am shouting now, “Hurry! Please!” and minutes later — I think it’s minutes, time is spiraling, collapsing — firemen and paramedics burst on the scene, push the coffee table aside, and roll my wife onto the floor and tear open her blouse, while I am backed up against the living room wall, watching the unwatchable: watching my wife die.

Joy went into the hospital on a Thursday morning in mid-August, a torn ligament or tendon of the knee, a torn meniscus to be specific. Outpatient surgery. No big deal, that’s what the doctor said. She had torn it walking up (or was it down?) a flight of stairs at the Museum of Modern Art and limped around for weeks until finally making the decision to have surgery.

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