I was waiting to go to the dentist and just idling around the house. I went over to the bookcase and pulled out a book at random, which was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. An index card fell out of the book. In Bob’s shaky writing was printed these words: "By His stripes we are healed."

Another sign that he is with me as I try and polish my manuscript about our journey together. I am not sure how to interpret that Bible passage. To me, it is saying that by my husband’s sufferings, I am healed. For he surely went through devastation after devastation and bore them all with great dignity. All of his ribs broken from the cancer, all of his bone marrow infiltrated by it, he finally bled to death one drop at a time. In hospice, his nose bled for days until finally his heart stopped. There had been months of transfusions of blood and packed platelets to keep him alive, but finally the doctor said it was time to quit. He didn’t want to go; he wanted to stay as my protector. He asked me if I would ask the doctor to sign him out of hospice and put him back into the hospital.

“Yes, I can do that, if that is what Bob wants,” he said. But Bob died before that happened.

Five years later, an old index card falls out of an inspirational book. I sit and hold it in my hand. I read a bit from the book. “The only true law is that which leads to freedom,” Jonathan said. “There is no other.”

A friend had recommended that I get the book and read it to Bob as he was making his transition. He was never that interested; I suppose he was too weak to pay much attention. So it has been in the bookcase all these years. I have gotten rid of hundreds of spiritual books, but that is one that has remained. And I am so glad.