Last week, the national coverage of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony played out on each of my co-worker’s computer screens. I was live streaming The Guardian’s coverage on my iPhone at my desk. This was a historic moment: social media was full of images of people watching the testimonies on subways, in cafes, in doctor’s offices, lunchrooms, and work spaces. I scrolled by post after post, tweet after tweet, of women paralyzed with emotion and reliving their own traumas. Some were angry, ready to burn everything to the ground; some said they weren’t strong enough to watch. I couldn’t fault any of them.

I slipped on my headphones and watched Dr. Christine Blasey Ford take a seat. She looked like a nice lady, braving a smile and dressed in a sharp navy suit, long blonde hair, and glasses. I instantly pictured her at a lecturn. She looked like I might look fifteen years from now. I identified with her. Even on the small iPhone screen, I could almost see her carotid arteries pulsing; I counted her quick respirations. There was no question — she was, as she said, terrified.

Then another woman took the stage: Rachel Mitchell, a career prosecutor from Maricopa County, Arizona. As the chief of the special victims unit, she has spent years prosecuting sex crimes. We were told in news reports that Rachel Mitchell has been awarded and lauded for her talents in the courtroom, that her particular skill set was honed by fighting for victims, especially women and the young.

As she began her questioning of Dr. Ford, I found myself absolutely riveted by Rachel Mitchell. Framed in delicate glasses, her dark blue eyes were unreadable and rendered her entire expression impermeable. The sound of her voice, though, is the thing that caught me off guard. It had all the ingredients we are taught to trust: light but not childish, friendly but not pushy, smart but not arrogant. She sounded like a childhood confidante … young girls know that moment when you meet your new best friend and in a hushed moment of discovery, you find you both have similar likes and dreams and secrets. Oh my goodness, you think to yourself, she is just like me. It is a moment familiar to every girl, every woman, and it caught like a fish hook in my belly. Her voice was a gentle reminder of something I had experienced myself and trusted. She got to me. I might as well have been a greedy rockfish, swallowing whole a strip of bait on a rusty rig.

I wanted to like Rachel Mitchell. After all, I knew she was a protector of the abused, the raped, the discarded, the assaulted, the unbelieved, the women, the children… the scared and the suffering.

The ones like me.

As I watched the hearing unfold, there was a shift in my mind between watching Rachel Mitchell examine Dr. Christine Ford and my own experience in the courtroom. Suddenly, I was 15 years old again sitting in the witness stand, and I was, as Dr. Ford so aptly described, terrified. The judge was to my left. In front of me, seated at a long table, was the reason I was there. He stared a hole right through me. I could not look at him … I could only feel him. And with every question aimed at me, with every detail I had to share, I felt the weight of every eye of every stranger in the courtroom. My skin crawled. I wished for the floor to open up and swallow me whole. I wanted to die.

Each time a senator yielded his time, my mind inserted Rachel Mitchell into my own experience. I imagined that it was her asking me about what I heard and saw and felt, asking me about my mental health and where I was in relation to this event or that event. I imagined it was her receiving my answers, my narrative, my story. I imagined him looking at me over her shoulder clothed in the business armor of a navy blue suit jacket and a pale green blouse. Would I have heard that secret knowingness in her voice and felt lulled into a false sense of security? Would I have betrayed myself to find her kind and warm and thinking of me with any amount of empathy? I remembered all the courage it took for me to walk into that courtroom and sit there in the witness stand. I remember wishing I felt brave. And then I imagined Rachel Mitchell not believing me.

That old ghost, that tidal wave of humilation swelled within me once again.

When her five minute sessions were over, my mind snapped back to reality. She was a prosecutor. She was on our side … wasn’t she? But no, not in this instance. She sat in opposition of the victim. I felt the pull of that fish hook in my intestines. I didn’t understand. How could she do that? What was I to make of her? What were we all to make of her?

To sit in a witness stand is a heavy obligation; to do so as a survivor is a public flogging, only instead of a whip, there is simply the long lash of shame and guilt and nakedness. The cuts may heal but the scar tissue remains sensitive for a lifetime. I can still feel mine nearly 25 years later and watching Rachel Mitchell question Dr. Christine Ford lit them on fire all over again. That stinging has not yet subsided.

Dr. Ford’s wavering voice echoed in my ears. Did my voice crack when I spoke? Was I helpful with my testimony? I think I mustn’t have been because there were no hard consequences for him. Often, there aren’t any, which is the deepest cut of all. You suffer the trauma, you suffer the process, and then you suffer the inconsequence of it all.

Such a massive amount of responsibility is placed on the shoulders of girls. We are groomed, often because we are damaged, and then we are put on display where our perfection and innocence is expected in order for us to be believed. How could I do that? How can we project such things, Rachel Mitchell? You place us in an awful paradox: our innate feelings of guilt are the very reason for our innocence lost.

In their cordial exchanges, Dr. Ford was eager to be accommodating and Rachel Mitchell patiently circled. It is a dark ballet of words and shadows, revolutions and eclipses… the knowledge of the trap being set and the anticipation of its springing. I knew what this was. And there in my office, with my heart in my throat, I relived my own courtroom experience all over again and I sobbed like a child. In the exchanges between those two women, I was returned to the gloaming of my innocence … I became again what I once was: a teenage girl who had tiptoed into darkness and paid a price.

I was lost.

When the hearing recessed, I wondered how Rachel Mitchell was feeling. I wondered if she felt conflicted. She built her career as a defender of victims and yet she was poised in a role more akin to defense attorney. Was her stomach in knots? I saw her grip the sides of the podium; I noticed the pen in her hand; I watched her calmly turn over her notes. But her hands never shook. She was never flustered. She never broke her inscrutable composure. I marveled at her nerves and her steadiness. Where on earth could that possibly come from in a moment like that?

But as for Dr. Christine Ford, I didn’t have to wonder how she was feeling. I already knew that part.

That night, as I tried to fall asleep, there was a face staring back me in the abyss of my resurfacing anguish. It was the calm face of Rachel Mitchell. The accused are the real menace, but it was her face and her voice and her role which haunted me more than anything. She wasn’t supposed to be on that side. She stood in the place of men, quite literally in front of them, and directed her questions seemingly at all of us. Every person who has ever been questioned about their trauma has had to look into the eyes of someone like Rachel Mitchell and beg for belief. Whether it happens in a police station or an interrogation room or a hospital bed or a courtroom, we all have to find whatever shreds of strength and resolve we have left so that we may open our collective mouths and say, “Yes, this happened to me.”

When Rachel Mitchell smiled, I watched as her round, apple cheeks pulled back to reveal a broad smile. There were no fangs, no sharp incisors dripping with saliva, ready to sink into the throaty pulse of Dr. Christine Ford. She seemed equitable to Dr. Ford, but the subtext of her words and the unspoken reason for her presence were plain enough: are we supposed to believe you?

Her shift from protector to interoggator gutted me.

There was a moment in the hearing that I keep replaying in my mind. It happened toward the end of Dr. Ford’s testimony. Rachel Mitchell says the platform chosen for this moment wasn’t ideal. The best way, she tells Dr. Ford, is a private, one-on-way interview in which the victim can just talk and provide a full accounting of the events and details — a moment to tell their story.

She leans in and asks, “Did you know that?” The question is delivered with concern. It might as well have been Rachel Mitchell offering a protective arm draped over the shoulder of a victim. I could see her saying it to a small child or a teenage girl. Was that a ring of kindness in her voice? I wanted to believe I heard it.

Dr. Christine Ford moves towards the microphone, smiles, and says, “It makes a lot of sense.”

Then comes the reassurance from Rachel Mitchell, “It does make a lot of sense, doesn’t it?” In this moment, two women reached a moment of understanding on the world’s stage. The interaction seems collegial and light enough given their circumstances, and yet, I waited, heart in my throat, to see a glint of a dagger, of those pearly incisors lying in wait.

The bite came days later in a memo in which Rachel Mitchell said Dr. Christine Ford’s case was weaker than a “he said, she said” scenario. This cuts deep because our words are often all we ever have.

The day after the hearing, the news and social media burst into flames with pundits offering their expert opinions on cable network panels and in printed think pieces. As is human nature, everyone had something to say. The divide was set: those who believed Dr. Ford and those who didn’t or were unsure or who simply wanted it all to go away. The men and women who condemned her and, by proxy, other survivors provided publicly the very reasons why we don’t come forward: we fear we will not believed and to that they said we don’t believe you; we fear there won’t be any consequences and to that they said no one even needed to apologize.

But one of the greatest contrasts I witnessed was this: despite the people who publicly mocked Dr. Christine Ford and the veracity of sexual assault survivors, I had friends share their stories of sexual assault with me. Women I have known for years opened up. Women who have never revealed these painful secrets ushered them into the light. And we believed each other.

Yet my mind was still on those two women. I wondered what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford did on the day after her hearing. I like to think of her doing something good for herself. Maybe she shared a nice bottle of red wine with her husband or her best friends. Maybe she took a long, luxurious nap. Maybe she just took a deep breath and let it out and tried to release both the heartache and the relief. I like to think of her smiling, confident in the knowledge she made many of us proud.

And what about Rachel Mitchell? What was she feeling? What will life be like for her when she goes home to Arizona and the spotlight fades? I wonder if she will ever come to regret her role in that hearing. Because I did. This one nagging thought kept at me: will there be a young teenage girl in Maricopa County burdened with a terrible secret who now becomes afraid to look Rachel Mitchell in the eye and speak her truth? Will she see Rachel Mitchell as protector or challenger? Will she be able to trust Rachel Mitchell with the hardest truth of her life? If I were that young girl, I don’t think I could.

As for me, I remember exactly what happened to me the day after I left the courtroom: I got my driver’s license.

The stinging of my old scars reminds me that, despite my complicated history, not all was lost. I remain imperfect and broken; the ghosts of my past linger always in the middle distance. I see them. I greet them. Yet I rise again and again and push myself into the days ahead. There is no other way. When I consider how far I have come, I remember that no officer of the court saved me. No judge, no jury. It isn’t up to prosecutors to save us. Maybe some of them find justice for a few of us, but justice isn’t peace. The path to being comfortable inside your own skin is long and arduous and constantly filled with hindrances. To move forward is left to us as survivors and as a collective community.

And the first step is always belief.

I cannot help but wonder … what is it you see?

In me?

This morning, I sit here amid stacks of books and papers, an old typewriter, red ink pens, scratch pads, and sticky notes of questions in nearly illegible scribbles. I am surrounded by a thousand ends which require tying by capable fingers and a methodical mind — resources I lack more often than not. But here I am, trying because I haven’t yet figured out how to quit. I think of you in the next room, warm and peaceful and dreaming still. You wouldn’t want me to quit, would you?

Today is our anniversary. We married two years ago. I dug through one of those stacks of papers and found my vows. I made you promises. Do you remember?

“My brown eyed girl,

I remember the moment when I fell in love with you. It was years ago on a trip to the beach. You were walking towards me, and as I watched you, in those few seconds, I found myself suspended between time and thought. Then you smiled at me. And that was that. I’ve been yours ever since.

When you came along, my entire world changed in every possible way. Suddenly, where there was darkness, I saw light. You gave me the courage and strength to be able to feel comfortable in my own skin. You have the kindest soul and most generous heart I have ever known. For all my quirks and oddities, for every scar and missing body part, for every time I feel like I’m not good enough or too broken, you make me feel whole and good. No one has ever loved me like this. Until I met you, I had no idea that life could be this sweet … every morning that I awake in your arms, a small part of me wonders if I’m still dreaming.

I promise to fill your days and the years ahead with love and comfort and laughter. I will always make you coffee in the morning and tell you I love you before we fall asleep at night. And all those hours in between, you will know without question that you have a true partner in this life — a best friend, a soft place to fall, a lover, a defender, a wife who will always stand beside you.

I have thought so long about what I would say to you in this moment. And there is but one constant thought — time. Because no matter how much of it I get with you, it’ll never be enough. From the first moment on that beach until our last, just know this … I am yours.”

Perhaps my sentimentality gets the better of me. Forever awkward and sensitive. Forever saying too many of the almost-right-words. Forever revising and editing while still in the moment.

How you put up with me is a mystery… why on earth you would marry a writer on purpose…

Do you remember the very beginning, seven years ago? We stayed up all night drinking tequila, talking, staring up at the stars, laughing, only stopping when we saw the first rays of daylight start to peek up over the treetops. I remember falling asleep as the sun rose only to be anxious to wake up and see you again. We had so much to tell each other. We had plans; we had dreams; and we seemed to have a sense of the future. And I was certain I could be the person you needed, the partner you deserved. Maybe it was the flush of new love that made me believe so much in myself and my capabilities… I should have known better.

Over the years together, we have suffered catastrophic losses. Traumas and heartbreaks came at us like meteors pummeling the earth. This is the thing new love never quite seems to see coming — the inevitable storms and curses. But we always held fast to each other, to us. Through every moment of those awful times, I clung to you because I cannot envision a life or a world in which we are apart. You are my safest place. When the world beat me down, I crawled into your arms and wept while you whispered that you loved me, that everything was going to be alright.

And with you, it always is.

The day I married you was the best day of my entire life. We married on the beach in front of our family and friends. We laughed. We cried. We drank tequila. The sun was warm in a perfect sky; the horizon stretched out in front of us over the ocean as if to say the miles ahead were unknown but we would find a path together. With you, I’d go absolutely anywhere.

But these two years have been hard. How I wish we were still on fire as newlyweds are meant to be. We were robbed. Just two months after those promises, I came close to losing you and I will never forget that fear. It rooted itself into my guts, wound around my ribs like a python, patient and powerful. But you fought back … unlike anything I have ever witnessed. You swallowed the pain. You stared down frustration. You rose up when you barely had the strength to stand.

To this day, I do not know how you did it. You are extraordinary.

Our marriage is so young and we have much to learn. I know I do. There are times in which I feel ill-equipped … my head gets tangled in words, my hands fidget until I put them on these keys or move ink across paper. I do not listen well, I rarely pay close attention, and I forget just about everything. It must be maddening for you. I think about my promises to you on our wedding day and I constantly worry that I am falling short. I try and try but my brain is a hornet’s nest of deliberations. It is full of fevers and voices … sometimes the loudest voice is my own telling me I am never going to get anything right and that I will never be good enough. Especially for you.

But you would never hear of such nonsense, would you?

No.

You say: you’re alright, Stephanie. Everything is fine — you are fine. Now go and get back at it.

I sigh. I breathe. I say: you are right.

And there it is. You fill me with promise and hope … of striving towards the best version of myself. Because you deserve no less. Each morning affords me a chance to make you laugh, to hold your hand, to be your best friend. As our journey evolves, we find ourselves as changelings in this world, one so impossibly cruel and unfathomably beautiful. Despite the storms and heartaches, that I found you at all makes me want to sing and dance and laugh. That you are still with me makes me want to grab the moon from its heavenly perch and place it at your feet. I can do nothing but smile and trip over my tongue whenever you are near.

So I sit here in the dark, vacillating between writing and doubting, waiting for you to wake up and call my name. I will find you in the disappearing darkness and you will give me a sleepy smile. I know when I ask you about your dreams, you will say you don’t remember them. You never do. You ask for a few more minutes to rest your eyes and I fight the urge to tell you every last thing brewing in mind … about how you are beautiful, how you are far more than I deserve, how you are dearer to me than life itself… But I do not. I let you rest for a few minutes more. In the quiet. In a soft halo of sleep.

And now the day is upon us and I must leave you one more time.

Because two years ago I made you promises … to love you, to comfort you, no matter the storms, and to always make you coffee in the morning.

My mother gave me a deadline: she was cancelling the storage unit and it was time to get the last of my stuff out. The leftovers from our old house as well as the odds and ends from two moves in my late twenties. Stuff that once was important enough to go into a box, but not important enough to retrieve on purpose. I got the message, though, loud and clear: go get my forgotten crap or lose it forever.

What was even in there?

Your stuff, my mother assured me.

But still, what the heck had I left behind?

Patty and I pulled up at the storage unit as the August sun burned orange in the late afternoon sky. We found mom’s unit and put the windows down in the back seat for Lima. She stuck her head out and barked at a squirrel nonchalantly hopping around on the other side of the chainlink fence.

“18–3–21,” I called to Patty. The padlock stuck a little but gave way, and the metal door groaned and screeched as we slung it upwards. The smell of cardboard boxes and the faintest whiff of mildew greeted us. It’s a familiar smell, like the stale air in your grandma’s attic or the metallic aftertaste of your father’s garage. It is the smell of memories, all covered in cobwebs and dust and too much darkness.

In total, there were about a dozen boxes plus old computers, a coat rack from my childhood bedroom, and two lime green chaise lounge chairs. These were not mine, I was sure of it, but my job was not to pick and choose. My job was to get it all out.

“All this has to go?” Patty asked, one eyebrow slightly curved upward.

“Yeah. We’re leaving nothing behind but the mouse turds.”

I pushed aside a cardboard lid on the box closest to the door and surveyed the contents. Junior high year books, a term paper from college on Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry, an old diary, stacks of mismatched photographs, a sticker book from elementary school. Things I once loved or deemed worth saving and yet forgot anyway.

As I riffled through the box, I paused over a few photographs. One was a black and white photo strip. My high school sweetheart used to take me on dates to the Ocean City boardwalk and we’d jump into those old photo booths every time we went. We are so young, I thought. We were just babies — both of us all chubby cheeks and bright eyes. I smiled as I thought about riding around in his beat up, late 80s Honda Civic.

Then another photo caught my attention. It was grainy and wrinkled in one corner. Taken on our porch, my first dog, Bridgette was sprawled out on a white whicker sofa. She was a Norwegian Elkhound. I was four-years-old when we got her, back in 1983. I have no idea where the name came from, but she was beautiful. God, I hadn’t thought about that dog in years. Loved the cold weather. Never wanted to come inside. Once during a really bad storm, my mom brought her in the house. She panted and paced and finally sat down at the back door, staring intently at it as though willing it to open.

I saw pictures of my childhood home. My mother’s decor in the 90s was country: dark plaids, floral wallpaper, Longaberger baskets, dried potpurri, hearts and angels and wreaths. Our house always smelled like cinnamon and sugar cookies or wild berries and rose hips. But in her defense, I feel like almost every suburban house in my town looked and smelled exactly like this.

Somewhere near the bottom of the box, I found something important, something irreplacable — a small letter from Alice Davis. My heart leapt! I was confident I had saved it, but in the shuffles of moving twice, I worried it was lost forever. Finding it again was pure elation and relief.

And heartbreak.

Alice Davis was my high school English teacher. I loved her. During my senior year, I had a rough time, and she was the only person who noticed I was struggling. My mother was going into renal failure after a severe allergic reaction and the local doctors seemed wholly unable to help her or stop the damage. An acute sense of terror grew within me. I was afraid of losing her. I tried to keep a brave face at home for my mom and for my sister. But my stupid tenderheart broke one day at school. It broke in front of Alice Davis.

I remember crying in her arms as I blubbered on about how my mom was so sick, how I was scared of losing her, how I was getting ready to go to college and I didn’t think I could make it without her, and how I worried about my little sister and what life was going to be like for her… and on and on and on. Alice hugged me. She let me get it all out. All the fear and doubt and anger — every bit of the poison. From then on, she took me under her wing and mentored me through it.

But in her classroom, I had to work. Just because she understood what I was going through did not give me a pass. No, no. I might have been going through a difficult time, but work was necessary and there was no such thing as a valid excuse or a reason to quit. There was no use in feeling sorry for myself. In this she taught me a lesson: work through the heartache; work because of the heartache.

Although straight-laced and reserved, she encouraged the writing nonconformist in me, even when my essays went against her natural grain. Once I wrote a paper on the legalization of marijuana for her class. That one made her eyes roll, but as always she judged me on the merits of my work and ability, not the content of my irreverent high school essays.

Alice Davis got me through my senior year of high school. That is not hyperbole.

In the light of a setting August sun, I opened the little envelope. Inside, on a notecard emblazed with the Parkside High School crest, she wrote in blue ink and lovely cursive. The date was April 21, 2006.

Dear Stephanie,

I know this thank you note is ridiculously late, but I do want you to know how much we all appreciated you taking the time to come in and speak at the Straight A reception. They really needed to hear what you had to say, and it was obvious that everyone enjoyed your remarks. On a personal note, it was so good to see you and to find out how you have been and what you’re doing. Thanks again and take care. You are very special and talented and I know you will continue to do well in the future.

Sincerely,
Alice Davis

This was it. This was the last thing she ever said to me.

Five and a half years after she wrote this note, Alice Davis was gone. Murdered by her husband. Brutally so.

I read the note again and wept.

Writing has always been my pathway to understanding. Only through these messy words on the page can I come to terms with the ramblings of my mind and the experiences of my life. Ink scrawlings on paper and in journals: this is how I make my peace. I know no other way.

When Alice was murdered, I knew one day I would write about it. About her. We could not make sense of what happened. We could not reconcile this gentle soul with the horrific violence inflicted upon her. In the days that followed, news reports recounted the strange and awful details of her death and her life. We were left mouths agape, devastated and dumbstruck. And for me, the only way I figured I would be able to make any sort of peace with it would be to write.

In June 2015, I decided it was time and I was off to a furious start: interviews, Freedom of Information Act filings for police reports, autopsy and toxicology reports, newspaper archives, and so on. By the end of the year, however, I hit a roadblock. The story wasn’t coming together right. Something was off. I was losing patience and growing frustrated. I began to sink into cliches: bitten off more than I could chew, in water over my head, not up to snuff…

Then I had a wedding to plan, and not long after the wedding, my wife and I were in a terrible accident.

Between my overwhelming writer’s block and the recovery from the accident, Alice’s story went cold. I was exhausted and empty, and a story like this one, complex and emotional, needed more of me than I had to give. So, as much as it bothered me, I let the story sit for about a year and a half, collecting dust in a file box next to my desk ... a writing desk belonging to a writer who wasn’t writing much of anything good at all. I grew angry with myself and I tried to fight back feelings of failure and resentment but finding little relief. I was stuck in that.

Until I found something I had lost.

The letter from Alice.

Before you start thinking it was a simple solution or tidy happy-ever-after-ending, let me help you check that notion right now. Writing is anything but easy; writing is a delicious agony. Anyone who ever thinks, “Oh, I can write a book! There’s nothing to it!” is either positively delusional or profoundly unaware of the rigors and mental endurance required if one seeks to do it well.

Often: it is hell on earth followed by glimpses of an Eden one can only witness from the outside. But those glimpses, though… oh, they are enough.

I took Alice’s letter and tucked it inside an old copy of The Fourth Edition of Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense by Laurence Perrine. At the end of the school year, as I prepared to go off to college, I asked Alice if she had any extra copies. We had used it as a textbook. She smiled at me and dug through a stack of books. She found one: the cover was torn in several places and was held together by copious amounts of masking tape. I wrote my name and year 1997 in pencil on this inside cover. I also wrote: “on loan from Mrs. Davis” as though I had any intention of giving it back.

Just after Christmas Day 2017, not long ago as I write this essay now, I sat down at my writing desk and resolved to finish what I started. Perhaps it was the excruciating thought of facing down another year with her story left undone. I lifted the lid on the file box and started again. My fingers have been on the keyboard every day, my pen on the paper. My mind is singularly focused in a way that feels old and familiar to me.

I wish I could say every sentence is spectacular and I am writer moving through moments of genius. Untrue, absolutely so. But what I can say is this: I come to the page daily, eager to start and loathe to stop. Her story is now a bonfire in my belly and I am no longer afraid of it. Writing, I have remembered now, is muscle memory and so I sit in this chair and I do the damned work. After all, there are no revisions which can be made to an empty page.

So here I am.

Because one must work through the heartaches.

“You’ll have to stay here until someone can come get you. They have to assess her first. But someone will come find you, alright?”

The paramedic on the ambulance crew was a young woman who delivered this simple instruction with a quick smile and a nod before she and her partner pushed the stretcher carrying my wife, Patty, down the hallway to the Trauma Resuscitation Unit at the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center.

From my vantage point, I could see a team of doctors and nurses, all wearing light pink scrubs, surround her. There was fast chatter but they were moving too far away for me to make out the words. They were all over her, evaluating and assessing, touching and talking. They reminded me of bees; this trauma center, their hive. The stretcher turned. The swarm and my wife disappeared behind a curtain.

I stood in the empty hallway, cold and lost. Holding a blanket and crying like a child.

Please come back to me. Please come back to me.

Time crawled under the fluorescent overhead lights. Never had I felt more alone and helpless.

Please come back.

August 27, 2016. We were struck in a crosswalk in Ocean City by a man who ran a red light. That day changed almost everything for us.

It happened so fast, that old cliche of a life changing in the blink of an eye. One minute we were laughing and happy; the next minute I was moving through the air, in slow motion and sideways. The impact began to register in my mind first, then in my body.

I hit the ground and immediately thought of Patty. Oh god. No.

I screamed her name and her eyes opened, her beautiful brown eyes, the color of toffee and caramel. That instant of relief was replaced by terror: when she gazed at me, those eyes held nothing. It was a blank stare, void of any recognition or understanding.

A woman rushed forward and asked if she should call 911 and I heard myself screaming “Yes! She’s hurt!”

As the sound of sirens approached us, I began to feel the aches in my body, but one look at her told me she had taken the worst of the hit. When the ambulance pulled up, the paramedics began to tend to Patty who was beginning to be able to communicate. One of the medics put me in the passenger seat of the ambulance and I watched from the window as they manuevered her into a collar and then onto a backboard.

Just then, I made eye contact with the man who hit us. He was standing on the sidewalk, talking to a cop. His eyes were wide and he looked almost as stunned as we did. We stared at each other. He mouthed the words, “Is she OK?”

I shook my head and began to cry.

The diagnosis at the local trauma center was multiple facial fractures and concern about her optic nerves. She had significant double vision and her face was beginning to swell and turn blue. Internally, there were no signs of bleeding, luckily, but the concussion was so severe that the doctors would later use the term “traumatic brain injury” to define her condition. Her jaw was broken in two places and her body was covered in red oozing lacerations and welts tinged with varying shades of purple, magenta, and green. Because of the head trauma and concern for her vision, the hospital staff arranged for an Advanced Life Support ambulance to transport her to University of Maryland Shock Trauma.

During the ambulance ride, the paramedic pushed morphine through one her IV sites. She lay quiet on the stretcher and I sat across from her on a long bench seat. This wasn’t how our day was supposed to go. We had a lovely breakfast at one of our favorite dives and were on our way to see a sea glass exhibit. This wasn’t part of the plan.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

In the back of the ambulance, under the hazy influence of morphine and pain and confusion, Patty called my name. Her speech was slow and slurred.

“Hey, honey, I’m right here.” I bent forward and touched her arm. Skin to skin. I wanted her to feel me and be reassured.

“My dad is here. It’s gonna be OK.”

Patty’s father, Lenny, died when she was 18 years old.

Tears came fast. I knew my voice would break so I inhaled deeply. “That’s real good news, Patty. Real good.”

For the rest of the ambulance ride, I watched as she occasionally stretched her fingers out as though reaching for something just at the end of her grasp. I listened as she mumbled in a hushed conversation with a ghost only she could see. I marveled at her peace and serenity, my heart glad in part that at least one of us could be.

My sister arrived at Shock Trauma before midnight. She held my hand as we both sat next to Patty’s bed. We listened to the beeps and clicks of the machines attached to her. Patty rolled in and out of consciousness, a combination of sedation and sleep working over her. The night was full of more questions than answers, but one plagued me above all: would I get my Patty back?

Just two and half months prior, on June 11, we were married on the beach surrounded by our family and friends under an azure sky. We held bouquets of gerber daisies, succulents, and sunflowers; our sisters stood next to us as bridesmaids; we ate tacos and drank (almost) too much tequila. Our first dance as wife and wife was to Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” There were margarita cupcakes and laughter and more kisses and hugs and love than I can even recall. It was the best night of my life.

During our wedding ceremony, when it was time to read our vows, Patty started hers with a “knock knock” joke, moving everyone to a unexpected burst of laughter. She broke the tension perfectly. That’s how she is. Once we all recovered, she looked at me and promised to always be by my side. For better and for worse.

As I held my sister’s hand at Patty’s bedside, I remembered our wedding. I remembered the woman I married. Patty is more than smart: people regularly and seriously refer to as a genius. She was a National Merit Scholar; her IQ runs north of 135. Calculus is child’s play. Once, as a joke, I asked her explain quantum mechanics and she actually started to break it down for me. I still don’t know what a subatomic particle is, but she does. Patty is the brightest human I know.

Beyond her intelligence is an incredible capacity for love, for generosity, and for empathy. Underneath her skin and inside her brain resides a soul that shines as brightly as a quasar. I only know what a quasar is because she once put her arm around me and pointed up at the night sky. Despite my insistence, she told me it was not a UFO, just a naturally occurring phenomena. A normal yet wondrous and amazing thing.

Just like her.

Just like the darling brown eyed girl who put a knock knock joke in her wedding vows. Just like the smartest girl I’ve ever met. Just like the North Star who keeps me heading always in the right direction.

I just wanted her back.

In the days following the accident, Patty showed obvious signs of the brain trauma. She had trouble walking, likely due in part to the double-vision and a massive hematoma on her left leg (which I named “the dinosaur egg.”) If I told her something, she wouldn’t recall it even twenty minutes later. She was quiet and spoke little, due mostly to her jaw being wired shut. She slept a lot.

I kept my fears to myself. When she couldn’t remember things, I played it off as though I had forgotten to tell her. I am more than prone to forgetfulness and absent-mindedness. She was always the responsible and levelheaded one. But inside, my heart was breaking. Was she going to come back? Would she remember again?

What would become of us?

I began contemplating selling our business and searching for a job that would provide me with a steady income and health insurance. Only two and a half months into our marriage — our newlywed days — and the for worse part was our reality. I would have been violently angry if I hadn’t been so damn scared.

The fractures required facial reconstructive surgery once the swelling went down. Some of the bone fragments, one doctor explained to me, were telescoping behind other pieces. In order to correct it, two small metal plates were attached to her skull and screwed into place to stabilize the broken sections of her face. The procedure was done at the University of Maryland and took nearly four hours. It took her another two weeks to recover from that.

Then, one day in October, it happened… the first sign of Patty coming back.

We own a small media company and one of the main printers went down. Patty is our work geek, the one in charge of fixing all the machines and keeping the tech components up and running. When I came home from work, she wanted to know how the day went. I explained to her that our Epson was finished. As far as I could tell, it was beyond hope and I’d have to start hunting down a new one. The problem was I had print orders to fulfill and now we were effectively shut down.

“Take me to work. Let me shee what’sh going on wif it,” she pleaded through clenched teeth.

“No, absolutely not. You’re not going in. I’ll figure out who to call in the morning.”

Here’s the thing about my wife: she is the definition of relentless. With eyes full of determination, no longer seeing double and no longer encumbered by broken bones, she told me she was serious. She wanted to get out of the house. These walls were closing in and she just wanted to get out. Please, could I just let her try? At least let her go for a car ride? I didn’t want to, but I gave in.

Under the cover of darkness, we arrived at the office. I helped her inside and sat her down. I flicked on the printer and the computer screen. “You swear you are OK?”

“Yesh.”

My regret was immediate: She’s supposed to be recovering. Why did I let her talk me into this? The answer should have been a firm no. What am I doing here? She should be home resting, not here working. I’m failing her and —

“It’sh fixed.”

“Wait. What?!”

Sure enough, she had managed to reset the counter code. Something I didn’t know existed or was even possible. The printer was back online and ready for action. Astonishment is an understatement. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My heart lept in my chest. I wanted to grab her up in a bearhug, but I resisted that particular impulse.

“Now, can we go get a milkshake?” One corner of her mouth turned up in a little grin.

And there she was. My Patty. Coming back to me.

Today marks a year. It’s not a pleasant anniversary but an anniversary nonetheless. And as humans are wont to do, we mark time passing with celebrations and homages, however small or personal. Today marks the day I almost lost her. Today marks the day I know for sure that I did not.

She came back, little by little. The road has been long and arduous; there remains a good bit of distance yet to go. The dinosaur egg appears to be a permanent fixture on the outside of her left leg and the dark scar tissue on her arms and ankles will fade in time. The left side of her face is numb. She can’t feel it when her nose runs; sometimes she dribbles when she drinks. There is only a little sliver of a scar above her left eye; the doctor tried to hide it in her eyebrow. If I touch ever so lightly, I can feel the plates and screws just under her soft skin. But I don’t do that. She doesn’t need reminding.

Math is harder now. She fumbles for words when she gets flustered, sometimes stuttering over her words. When I see it, I reach over and remind her it’s ok, remind her to just take her time. Once in a while she gets angry because she feels changed, robbed even. “I wasn’t like this before. He took that away from me and he had no right,” she will say in those moments when she feels less confident and more self-conscious of how her brain functions now. I don’t argue with her about it. Not ever.

Honestly, I’m just grateful she’s here.

We know life isn’t fair. We never imagined how changed our lives would be. We never thought we’d miss our honeymoon or lose the newlywed buzz so quickly. But we learned a far greater lesson: we can make it. Together.

And I learned this:

I thought I loved my wife on our wedding day. I thought it was the pinnacle of my understanding of her. It wasn’t. As I watched her suffer, as I watched her refuse to give into self-pity and pain, as I watched her treat her recovery as a mission, I realized Patty is much more than I ever knew. Her will is iron and her determination is stone. Her heart thrums and pushes like the ocean, never ceasing and never yielding. Patty is some kind of extraordinary phenomenon, rising like the sun each morning and only conceding when the night has come again. In all my life, I have never witnessed tenacity like this.

That I cherish, respect, and love her as I do today is no accident at all.

I found out my mother was sick again by accident. She asked for help with her iPad and as I was closing her apps, I saw “Biopsy” logged in her calendar. It caught me by surprise and an old, familiar knot formed in my stomach. Had it come back? I quickly closed her calendar and said nothing to her. I made a mental note to call my sister, Kristen, and talk to her about it.

By all outward appearances, our mother, Jacki, was happy and healthy … so what was going on? I tried to be nonchalant. Pushing away my frustration and hurt, I fought my instinct to ask and decided to let her keep her secret. At least for a little while longer.

But I didn’t have to wait long. The biopsy confirmed her suspicion and it was awful news: her kidneys were failing again.

Back in the mid-1990s, my mother decided to redo our early 1970s kitchen. The dark brown cabinets and golden formica countertops with matching paisley linoleum had to go; the setup was replaced with cabinets painted in a rustic French blue with distress marks, faux granite formica countertops in a color scheme called “Butternut Squash,” and new laminate cherry wood floors. When it was finished, it was gorgeous — my mother being equal parts Bob Villa and Martha Stewart.

One of the side projects involved refinishing an antique washstand, an heirloom from her grandfather. As some of the dull green paint had begun to flake off, she realized there was beautiful walnut wood underneath its stale avocado veneer. She purchased an extremely potent paint remover, opened every window, turned on the ceiling fan, and set to work.

The next morning, she was vomiting profusely and spiking a fever. Her cheeks were flushed and pink; her joints, visibly swollen, ached with every moment. We weren’t exactly sure what was going on. Perhaps it was some kind of allergic response? Within a few days, she seemed to return to normal. The kitchen was finished and the washstand was returned to its stunning glory. Life in our house proceeded as usual.

But it wasn’t.

For my mother, something was wrong and, as a trained nurse, she knew it. When she went to the doctor, the test results showed there was significant damage to her kidneys. What followed next, over the course of several months, was a mind-wrecking tailspin: an onset of severe diabetes, renal failure, steroids, total hair loss, constant nausea, weight gain, and a long list of other indignities and complications.

On December 26, 1996, she went for her first kidney biopsy.

A few days later, she came home from work, took off of her wig, and laid her head in my lap. I started to massage her bare scalp while I finally worked up the nerve to ask her if she knew anything yet. Her blue eyes were steady, but full of things I couldn’t yet read. She said the doctors told her they were running out of ideas. She closed her eyes. My fingers kept moving in small, slow circles where her once dark hair, full of tight curls and hairspray, now gave way to a barren landscape of yellow skin and red bumps. She took a deep breath and let out a sigh that froze me, “They say I may likely die from this.”

I was 17.

Something changed within me during those days. Every morning, I watched her dress for work, do her make-up, put on her wig, and head off to a full-time job at the local hospital. In the evenings, she cooked dinner, paid the bills, straightened up the house, and helped us with homework. She even stood in as coach for my little sister’s softball team upon learning the girls had no one at the helm. Always pushing forward and refusing to stop. Sympathy was unacceptable to her. Yet through her silent suffering, she nurtured us and raised us without complaining and without letting her guard down for fear we’d glimpse the truth about her condition and be afraid.

In truth, she was afraid. Although she wasn’t yet at the point of dialysis, the drug treatments were causing as many side-effects and complications as they were helping, if they worked at all. Her blood sugars hit toxic levels. Lumps burgeoned from her body. She wasn’t getting better, and she knew it.

Because of her medical background and because of her naturally tenacious spirit, she requested to be seen at Johns Hopkins. She was accepted into a kidney study program and spent a few nights in the hospital there. Eventually, the team landed on a positive treatment and halted the plummeting of her renal failure. The damage was done, however, and she was left with about 50% kidney function. She worked hard to control the diabetes and weight gain, a lasting effect of massive amounts of daily prednisone.

And it worked for about 14 years.

In February 2013, upon returning from a vacation in Curacao, my mother went for a routine visit with her kidney doctor who promptly informed her that her recent lab results were concerning. Old familiar thoughts of mortality and sickness kicked up long settled dust. She worried about her daughters and being sick as a single woman. She had beaten it once. Could she do it again?

The new biopsy revealed a new diagnosis: Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis or FSGS. This rare disease attacks the filters in the kidneys, damaging and scarring the glomeruli, which causes the kidneys to fail. As the weeks turned to months, the lab results only worsened.

That summer of 2013, at the suggestion of her doctor, she tried a drug called Acthar. Prescribed for anti-inflammation, the drug cost a staggering $28,000.00 per vial. Each vial contained about six doses. My sister and I were suffused with feelings of anger, helplessness, and outrage. After only a few rounds of the drug, however, her condition rapidly deteriorated. Her stomach swelled with edema; her skin became too sensitive to touch; and she was in such a constant state of physical pain and nausea that her mind drifted to the darkest of places.

My mother became a statistic. A patient in renal failure. Another test tube of blood, another biohazard bottle of urine. Bad lab results followed by worse lab results. It was a Sisyphean fight of pills and insulin, failure and heartbreak. Day after day. Month after month.

We followed her lead and kept moving forward. By this time, we had already learned that if she wanted us to know the details, she’d tell us. We could pepper her with questions, but on this topic, she remained dismissive. So frequent were her repudiations that we nearly stopped asking at all, preferring instead to steal glances at her lab reports when she wasn’t looking.

On June 30, 2014, my sister joined my mother, me, and my soon-to-be-fiance Patty, on a trip to New York City to visit a kidney specialist, Dr. Gerald Appel — an expert in the field of nephrology. He was the doctor who helped NBA superstar, Alonzo Mourning, with his kidney transplant. He even treated Charles Lindbergh when he suffered with renal disease in his twilight years.

She had already gone to see a doctor in Washington, D.C. who said he didn’t think he could help. The reason: the biopsy from 1996 showed a different disease process than the 2013 biopsy, which had revealed FSGS. The findings were confusing and seemed to make for an unreadable and potentially extremely rare diagnosis.

As we sat in front of Dr. Appel, a man who looked like a real life version of Ned Flanders, we tempered our optimism with realism. He said he wanted to stave off dialysis and/or a transplant, and his suggestion was another biopsy — almost like a tie-breaker — and an altered drug therapy course. Transplant. The word echoed in my head. As I looked at the photographs of him with Alonzo Mourning on the bookshelf behind his head, all I could think was: please… please save her.

The next day, I had to put my dog down. Shiloh. A gentle golden retriever mix who I adopted shortly after graduating college in 2001. His heart finally gave out after three years of battling kidney disease. I held his head in my hands and said goodbye. When they took him from the room, I sank to my knees. My mother held me as I sobbed on the floor of the veterinarian’s office.

A few days later, the 3rd biopsy came back confirming FSGS.

It was as if I walking to a drumbeat composed of heartbreaks.

By Thanksgiving, she was getting worse. Her labs continued to degrade. Her kidney function was hovering around 28%. Every day was a battle to preserve what precious little filtering remained. The notion of dialysis and/or a transplant went from an “if” to a “when.”

On December 5, 2014, Kristen and I accompanied her to a transplant class at the University of Maryland satellite center in Easton, Maryland. To say that reality was setting in is a wild understatement. We got a crash course in dialysis and the transplant process, and we quickly learned that finding a match is no simple task. Children and siblings offer the best potential for being a living donor match, but there are a myriad of disqualifying factors. My sister and I filled out a long questionnaire and had our blood drawn to see if we were matches for her. I could see the nervousness on my sister’s face, although she did her best to hide it. Two weeks, they said, and you’ll know if you’re a match.

On December 23, 2014, a transplant nurse coordinator called me. I was at work, sitting at my desk. It was a big moment, and I desperately wanted to be a match. The thought of being unable to help her terrified me.

“You’re a match,” she said. “Actually, you’re a perfect match. You are a 6 out of 6 match.”

I could have jumped out of my skin! I cried and thanked her. She said she was calling my sister next. Kristen ended up being a 4 out of 6 match. We both felt it was like winning the lottery; we both saw the lane ahead, full of of hurdles and obstacles.

My hands trembled as I dialed my mother’s number. When she picked up, she had barely said “Hello” before I blurted it all out: I’m a match! A perfect match! We can do this! I can do this!

My jubilation was met with silence.

Then quiet sobbing.

“Stephanie, are you sure about this? Are you sure you want to do this?”

Without hesitation, I told her, “Absolutely. Yes, I want to be your donor.”

Over the holidays, we talked it over as a family: me and Patty, Kristen and Mom. We all agreed that I would start the donor testing. Kristen has a physically demanding job and I didn’t want her to endure any physical setbacks. But more so, I am the big sister. I wanted to do it for our mom and for her. Kristen wouldn’t say the words, but I could tell the idea was scary for her. But I know my sister: if I hadn’t been a match, she would have stepped up to the plate. Not a doubt in my mind.

January and February were a flurry of tests and road trips to Baltimore. The University of Maryland team had to be sure that I was going to be able to deliver a Grade A kidney. I learned, on one of those early trips, that they were going to take my left kidney. On a whim, I told my mother we should name the kidney, and since it was a left kidney, we should pick a girl’s name that starts with “L.”

Her idea: Lulu.

Mine: Louise. And that would leave me with Thelma.

She loved it, and I began sending her text messages from Louise. Every day, Louise would tell Jacki what she was doing, what she ate, and so on. Thelma and Louise, the kidneys, became part of our family. We talked of them as we talked of Grandmom Mae or Poppop Tarr. In a way, I think it was one of the most helpful things for my mom in terms of accepting the transplant and me as her living organ donor. At first, she didn’t want me to be the one. Mothers give to their kids — they don’t take from them, and especially not organs. Jacki wanted her kidney to come from someone else who she’d get to thank a later date. But that wasn’t how this was working out and we didn’t have time to wait. As one of her doctors bluntly put it, why wait for a lesser kidney? With a name, it stopped being “my kidney” or “Stephanie’s kidney” and it became it’s own entity. She was getting Louise — a new roommate who liked smooth jazz, walking on the beach, getting up early, and French country home decor. We laughed about it because we had to. Even the transplant team referred to the kidney as Louise.

Our surgery date was scheduled for March 27th, but there was a problem. No one was sure she could make it without emergency dialysis. The lead transplant surgeon was Dr. Bartlett — a rockstar in the transplantation field. He was involved in one of the first face transplants several years ago. The patient eventually ended up on the cover of GQ Magazine. Knowing that he had a living donor who was a perfect match and ready to go at a moment’s notice, Dr. Bartlett made the call: move up the surgery date and get us in the operating room as soon as possible.

On Sunday, March 8, 2015, Patty and I packed up the car and headed to Salisbury to pick up Jacki. We had to be in Baltimore by 6:00 p.m. because she and I had a pre-op items to complete: a colon cleanse for her and a full body, anti-bacterial scrub for me.

Kristen met us at the hotel, driving from Philly. Before she got there, I went over to check on our mother. Checking on her had become a habit for me, if even she was reticent to elaborate on her condition. She opened the door and I could see she was tired… nervous. She pulled a handwritten note from her suitcase and burst into tears as she handed it to me. It was a thank you card. Through her tears, she could only say this: “I just don’t know how to thank you for what you’re about to do for me.”

I pulled her to me. My fingers found their way to her head again. Small circles. Familiar and comforting. This time, though, intended to be so for both of us.

Before going to bed, I took a long hot shower. I had no idea when the next one would be. After drying off, I picked up the packages of medicated surgical towelettes and started my assignment. Then I felt it … a stinging sensation all over my skin which crescendoed into white hot burning. Oh my god. I ran to the bathroom mirror and saw red patches appearing all over my body.

Every inch of my skin — except for my face — was burning. I turned to Patty, unable to move or think beyond the immediacy of my panic. She immediately put me back in the shower and turned on a fast flow of cool water, and we tried to flush the chemicals off my skin. Nothing seemed to help. I worried the reaction might force me to go to the hospital or have the surgery cancelled. Patty kept putting cold towels on my legs and torso and arms.

That night, while I lay in bed, in a nearly delirious state, my mother was in the next room, vomiting repeatedly from the colon cleanse medication. My sister was keeping watch over her.

It was a long, sleepless night.

Our alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. The allergic reaction was gone, my skin once again normal. Patty and I dressed and met Jacki and Kristen. While waiting in the Holiday Inn Express lobby for the University of Maryland shuttle, we took a before photo. It is a stark visual: her face is full of edema while we are smiling over our anxiety.

In the shuttle, my mother, ever the early bird, beamed when she told the driver, “I’m getting a new kidney today!”

We reported to the surgical wing. It wasn’t open yet — a nearby clock read 5:00 a.m. An older gentleman and his wife soon joined us, and nervous small talk ensued. He was having open heart surgery. Although we smiled at one another, our eyes gave us away.

Finally, they called our names, and a nurse escorted my mom and I to a hospital room with two beds. We changed into the hospital gowns, shoving our clothes into large, clear bags. We put on our gowns, weird little socks with rubber grips on the soles, and surgical caps. A flurry of activity: nurses and doctors, paperwork requiring signatures, IVs, the anesthesiology team followed by the transplant team and the OR team, more questions, a couple of jokes.

It was real. It was happening.

My stomach quivered with butterflies, all moving in little, quick tornadoes. Patty counted 18 medical personnel plus the four of us. It was a like a well-rehearsed dance, a precise choreography in a medical beehive, each person knowing the previous steps and what was to follow. Kristen and Patty stood back and watched in utter amazement.

A quick explanation was given: the surgery would take approximately four hours. While they were prepping my mother, my left kidney (along with the vein, artery, and ureter) would be removed via a single port in my belly button. A little fatty spot on the outside of the kidney (discovered in pre-op testing) would be examined to ensure there weren’t any problems. Once Louise had been examined and approved, the team would take her to Jacki’s OR for transplantation to begin. I’d be closed up and sent to post-op recovery. Meanwhile, they would leave Jacki’s two original kidneys in place but Louise would find a home in her right lower pelvic region. Everyone understood the plan.

A nurse came to my bedside and injected Versed into my IV. This is the part where my memories start to get fuzzy around the edges. It was time to go. I told my mother I loved her. I’d see her soon. Patty and Kristen came to my bedside and kissed me, wishing me well.

The room swirled as they wheeled me out. Down the hall. Into the operating room. There were big round lights. White walls. I remember thanking everyone for the work they were about to do for us. And then … lights out.

Kristen and Patty waited in the University of Maryland Healing Garden. There was a woman, sprawled out on a nearby couch, coughing and hacking. Kristen joked to Patty that she was probably Patient Zero in the impending zombie apocalypse. Patty and Kristen stared at the elevators going up and down; they even counted the helium filled balloons which had collected in the skylights. They talked and laughed and even played a trivia game. By the fourth hour, there was no news.

The lady whose husband had open heart surgery was called back. He was fine and in the recovery area. Patty and Kristen looked at each other. Shouldn’t they be done by now? Around 11:30 a.m., a doctor came to talk to them. Everything was going fine, but Jacki’s part was more complicated. They kept waiting and watching as, one by one and group by group, all the other people in the Healing Garden left. They kept waiting until it was the two of them remaining.

Seven and a half hours after I was wheeled back into the OR, I was moved to the post-op recovery area. A woman called Kristen and Patty’s names. They could go back and see me, but Jacki wasn’t done yet.

I heard my name. I struggled to open my eyes. Everything was blurry. I closed my eyes. My name again. Kristen and Patty were there. I couldn’t look up or fully open my eyes. I tried to talk, but my throat felt raw. (I discovered later it was from being on a ventilator.) Kristen said all I wanted to know was one thing: did I do a good job?

I ate a few ice chips and promptly vomited on myself. The nurse put a pink puke bucket between my chin and my chest. It was shaped like a kidney. I threw up a few more times and then spilled the contents of the little vomit basin down the inside of my gown. And in and out of consciousness, I went. After seeing me, Patty and Kristen were concerned about what kind of shape Jacki was going to be in when they got to see her on the next round of visitation.

They went back to the Healing Garden and waited. Again.

Around 4:00 p.m., the lady called Patty and Kristen back. This time they could see both of us. They stopped by my room. There was a tv monitor a few inches from my face, showing beautiful shots of landscapes set to new age music. It is supposed to be a soothing things for patients, but it was more akin to being trapped in an elevator on a babbling brook with no means of escape. Kristen and Patty saw little to no improvement in me. Still groggy. Still covered in my own vomit. They decided to let me rest and head over to check on Jacki.

As they entered her room, they encountered a shocking sight: Jacki was sitting up in the bed, chatting and laughing with the nurses. Her eyes, which had been yellowing and puffy, were wide-open and bright; her skin was taking on a pinkish hue. Kristen and Patty marveled at her.

“I can see again! Everything has edges on it!”

This was a revelation for Kristen and Patty (and later me) because she never told us that she was losing her sight in the months leading up to the transplant. She also withheld the fact that she had blacked out at a traffic light and almost hit the car in front of her.

My mother complimented one nurse on her choice of jewelry. When the x-ray tech came by, she cracked jokes with him. She loudly announced how much urine Louise had already made. She told Dr. Bartlett that she loved him. Kristen and Patty shook their heads in disbelief. In just a few hours, that kidney was already making significant changes for her.

When my room was ready, they wheeled me by her room. I forced my eyes as open as I could in order to see her. All I remember is seeing her, sitting up, smiling and shouting at me, “Louise is working great!”

To which I croaked, “Oh! Love you!”

(I found out later that Louise came to life immediately and started making urine as they were stitching her up. Incredible. By the time she was in post-op, she and Louise had put out more than 2 liters of fluid.)

Kristen and Patty finally left the hospital after she was placed in a hospital room on the transplant floor. It was late and they had been awake more than 18 hours. Back at the hotel restaurant, they drank whiskey and vodka and ate deviled eggs topped with crab meat. They sat side by side at the Holiday Inn Express bar and ruminated about the day. As one recalled a funny detail, the other added a rejoinder. They were exhausted beyond measure, but found comfort in each other’s presence. No one could truly know what this whole process had been like for them, but they found that deep understanding, that appreciation for the gravity of the entire experience in each other. In that moment, they became sisters.

While Jacki and I were afforded the luxury of high quality painkillers, Kristen and Patty ordered another round of drinks and toasted our successful transplant and the first good night’s sleep in days.

Early in the morning, the dark pre-dawn hours, a nurse came in early and removed my catheter. I tried to make small talk to make it less weird which only served to make the encounter more weird. The next time I awoke, there was a group of interns standing at the foot of my bed. A doctor I’d never met asked me a few questions and told the group about my surgery.

When the sunlight hit my room, it was time for breakfast: apple juice, pancakes, and ham. It may be one of the most delicious meals I have ever eaten. I also had not eaten anything in more than 38 hours. As I ate, I surveyed my situation.

The living donor room was the most deluxe hospital room I’d ever seen: a fully stocked stainless steel mini fridge, a big basket of snacks and cookies, wood laminate floors, actual drapes, a wooden desk with a computer connected to the internet, and posh sitting chairs. Even the bathroom was decked out in tile and textured wall paper. (Every time Patty and Kristen came to my room, I handed out Starbucks lattes and six-packs of Oreos like a princess bestowing gifts on her people.)

I got to see my incision. My belly button was notched now, at the top and bottom, like it was exactly six o’clock. There was an additional hole on my left side where they had to put in another port/instrument. Apparently, Louise needed more elbow room to get out. The incision was held together with skin glue. Freaking glue. And it hurt like hell.

A nurse came into my room and wrote her name and my daily goals on the whiteboard near the door. “Mama Yoshi” said my goals were urinate, pass gas, and walk. I joked that I was pretty sure I could handle those. Mama Yoshi was a round Indian woman who I wanted to hug the second she smiled at me.

When Patty came to see me that first morning, I told her I wanted to go see Jacki. She agreed and helped me out of bed. Check that, Mama Yoshi. Every move hurt. I shuffled more than walked, holding my stomach as though my guts might spill out of the incision. I don’t know how far the walk was, but it felt like a couple of miles. Patty was by my side. From my clavicles to my pubic bone, I ached. My bones felt like breaking. My abdomen felt like an early contender for the Macy’s Day Parade. But I wanted to see her. After all this, I had to see my mother.

Triumphant, I reached her room. Kristen was there. As we entered the room, she was sitting in a recliner. She took one look at me and said, “Good lord, what happened to you?!”

“Uh, I just gave you a kidney!” And we burst into painful laughter.

She was radiant. Despite the multitude of tubes and drains and IVs sticking out from all over her body, she was a changed woman. I’ll never forget her face that morning.

Life as a transplant patient is not easy. Forget any notion of a biological reset: it’s not like you get a new organ and suddenly you can do whatever you want. No, getting a new organ means you have a new job. There are anti-rejection medication schedules, regimented eating and exercise rules, and more doctor’s appointments. I’ve watched my mother set-up her entire world around Louise, from the smallest aspects of her refrigerator organization to her activism about organ donation. They move to their own rhythm now, and part of their harmony was composed by my sister.

After we were discharged from the hospital, Kristen moved in with her and stayed for about a month. My sister set to the task of being her caregiver with the determination and seemingly boundless energy of a thousand worker bees. Because of the new dietary restrictions, Kristen overhauled our mother’s kitchen: she went through every item in the fridge, pantry, and cabinets then inspected their contents for sodium, sugar, preservatives, and expiration dates. If an item didn’t meet her approval, it was tossed or donated. Kristen then filled her kitchen with fresh food and ensured that every meal was exactly within the right limits. Because she is a vegetarian, my mother discovered a new world of tofu and seitan dishes and was delighted by it.

The medical schedule was equally regimented. Kristen didn’t like the format of vitals paperwork given to her at the hospital so she created her own Excel spreadsheet to track all the required vitals: wound drain outputs, urine outputs, blood sugar levels, blood pressure, temperature, and drug dosages. Kristen set-up a series of medication alarms in Jacki’s iPhone — a system she still uses to this day. Hour by hour, my sister monitored her progress in those first days home.

My mother and my sister are strong-willed women, tenacious and determined. Over the years of their relationship, their similarities sometimes resulted in a proverbial butting of heads. But in the weeks after the transplant, they allowed their vulnerabilities to be exposed to one another, and in the process, they grew closer. As my sister once put it, “I’ve seen things. I’m a changed woman.”

And while Kristen was the unsung hero of Jacki’s house, Patty was the workhorse in ours. In addition to being my caregiver, she kept our small business running, full steam ahead, often doing the work of two or three people in a single day, only to come home and attend to me. My days were spent on the sofa, watching the History channel and Netflix, and texting Kristen to see how mom and Louise were progressing.

By the end of the first month, the difference in my mother, thanks to Louise and Kristen, was dramatic. She lost more than 24 pounds, much of it fluid. We could barely comprehend it. I went back work somewhere around the fourth week. Life slowly resumed to a normal pace.

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of our kidney transplant. Today my mother is healthy and happy. On her last visit to her kidney specialist in Baltimore, the doctor told her that it is rare to find a patient so compliant and with such a positive outcome for a transplant. Mom often remarks that she treats Louise the same way she treated her pregnancies with my sister and me. She ate all the right things, exercised, slept well, and followed the medical rules with precision. Louise is her new baby.

She uses that metaphor often, and every time, I have a corollary thought. The doctors removed my kidney through an incision in my belly button, which is a reminder of the connection I once had to her — an umbilical cord through which she gave me life. Now, there is a new scar and a new connection to her — an incision through which I was able to help her sustain her own life. And there I am, back to these small circles with her.

Each day, we walk in the light of this experience, grateful for one more day to love our Jacki, to laugh with her, to hold her close, and to watch her do all the things she once thought were beyond her reach. Not long after Louise moved in, Jacki told me that she started a bucket list and intended to check things off. She started to travel again. When an old friend from high school, a sweet gentleman named Merrill, asked her on a date, she went. Not long after that, she fell in love with him. She even asked to go to a Michael Franti concert and sang to her heart’s content. (Turns out, Michael Franti’s son has FSGS too, and he talked to the crowd about it between songs.)

Life with Louise, as she says, is a very good life indeed.