My Wife Of 26 Years Died. 6 Months Later, I Received A Call That Left Me Stunned.

My wife Rebecca and I celebrated our 26th anniversary while she was getting in-patient care at a hospice center for pain management for her colon cancer. Well, “celebrated” is not quite right, though we certainly tried.

That day I dressed up a bit and brought her an elegant blue dress, pictures from our funky wedding, and a bottle of her favorite Barbaresco. After checking in with her doctor, I took her in a wheelchair to the garden to drink it. It was the sunny Friday of a warm Labor Day weekend. The Prairie Memory Garden was full of late summer bloom, and a playful pair of blue butterflies joined our bittersweet party.

Rebecca was feeling slightly less miserable, so after we shared wedding memories, she reminded me of what she expected of me as she imagined my life without her. She told me she wanted me to help our girls as much as I could, emotionally and financially; to remember her with love but not morbidity; and not to fall apart or be afraid to love again — because despite the pain, it would be worth it.

“Please, not today,” I said as I took her hand and planted a kiss on her pale cheek. “It’s our anniversary!”

“I know, but you’ve had a rough couple of years, too.”

“Nothing compared to you, and you’ve said all of this!”

Rebecca had actually told me all of this dozens of times. She’d been staring down death for nearly three years — since we’d learned that the cancer had spread to her lungs and was almost certainly fatal.

We’d recently gone to MD Anderson in Houston for a second opinion. When asked about potential treatments, the experts there said there was “nothing on the horizon anytime soon.”

We’d been married in Houston at the Rothko Chapel, and we stopped there after the appointment. We sat silently together