I remember parts of it of the last day I was alive, I remember the last time I saw my husband. He left when it was still bright out, a little breezy, in the distance the grey clouds where slowly moving in.

Franky chased after him for part of the way, then came trotting back to me and the place all three of us called home. The place smelled like flowers, yet with an undertone smell of a classic medical facility, that bleach smell. This was the price you pay when your home doubled as a clinic.

I don't remember why he had to go but I knew it was important. He hated to leave me alone for too long, an old fear that I would suddenly start coughing up my right lung or something along those lines. I found it adorable. He was always attentive and helpful and sometimes I hardly felt worthy of such devotion, and I tried to return it.

He told me once that it made him happy to help me, and so, I was happy. We were happy. And most of all we were in love.

I remember walking around the clinic for a while. Looking at the tiles and the walls with content and looking back I remember thinking one thing, that this was heaven. That spending my life with the man I loved and getting to help others live better lives, was heaven.

A little later a patient came in. A girl, I remember her asking where Johann was. I laughed and told her he was out. The girls were always attracted to him. He was very handsome but if you had told him that he would blush and mutter about how it wasn't true.

He was so bashful when it came to things about himself. And he looked so cute when he blushed, it made you want to say he was cute and that would make him blush even more.

I finished helping her withwhatever it was that the girl came for...it's been a while, I don't even remember her leaving the clinic actually but time does that to a person's memory...and I suppose death does too.

After she left I took Franky for a walk, we had a dirt road that ran past the house. I remember Franky pulling the leash from my hand and running down the road, kicking up dirt that clouded my vision the road dusty and dry, we were over due for some rain. I coughed from the dirt, but I hardly noticed it, over the years I got used to coughing.

The low rummble from the in coming storm scared Franky back to me, and we got inside before the first drops hit.

Franky was only allowed in a certain parts of the house because of the health codes so I had to put him in the part we lived in. I put food in his dish, he licked my hand and I remember it tickling.

I took to sweeping the clinic floor. It had gotten a little dusty and an important part of a running a medical facility is cleanliness.

I heard the slight pitter-patter of the rain. The sky wasn't covered completely by the clouds, the sky peeked through. I remember this because after I swept the floor I went to the waiting room and looked out the window. The garden of vegetables we had, and could easily see from the window, was getting a nice light bath.

The phone rang in the office and I answered it. It was Johann.

His voice made me smile. He said something about taking inventory and that he would be a little late and he would make it up to me later.

Sometimes being with him made me feel like a teenager, when we were together we couldn't stop smiling. Sometimes we didn't need to talk. Just him holding me made me feel like the love we had would never end. And pardon the cliché but time stood still all too often. We had been that way almost since the beggining.

Someone shouted on his side of the phone and he had to hurry off. He didn't say 'I love you' and I knew he would notice that about three seconds after he hung up the phone.

I smiled. I was in for a nice surprise tonight. He said he always felt bad if he ever forgot to say ' I love you' and would keep doing things for me until I put my foot down and told him it was alright. I never let him do things for me for long. Even though he felt like he had to show it, I will always knew he loved me. It was something unspoken and understood.

I finally placed the phone back into its cradle. I remember Franky barking a little and then he went suddenly quite. Franky was always a loud barker but good with the children that came. At the time I assumed what ever had gotten him started ran off, a mouse in the field he could see from the house.

I found the paper work for inventory in a drawer in the office. Found a clip board and began inventory.

I can't for the life of me (forgive the pun) remember what was even in the cupboards and in the cabinets. But I do know at a time I knew where everything was...inside and out I could find the things that were needed.

I was faced away from the door to the examination room, counting cottonballs. The door was ajar and it lead to the waiting room, which had three doors of it's own. One was the patient entrance for the clinic, one was a patient bathroom and the other was the door we had used to go back and forth between the house and the clinic.

The rain was very faint. And the sun had finished setting. There were crickets chirping.

I heard footsteps, but from where I wasn't paying attention to.

I remember thinking it must be someone for an walk in appointment, we kept longer hours then traditional hospitals and it wouldn't have been the first time a patient had showed up after sunset. The door to the waiting room opened. Only now do I realize that it was the wrong door. It was the door to the house that had opened, not the patient door.

The foot steps were even and calm as they stepped onto the carpet of the waiting room. It certainty wasn't a life threatening problem. The person's foot steps would have been quicker or uneven.

I didn't turn around. I should have. Maybe that...no it wouldn't have saved me, I was home alone. The doors still unlocked. And my only protection already taken care of.

Nothing could have saved me. I think if Johann had been there, he would have died too.

I heard the cocking of a gun. I turned around, half expecting it to be some joke. When I saw the intruder I was able to take in quickly that he had blood on him. My training had given me that ability. A bag in his left and a gun in his right.

I screamed. For, probably a thousand reasons, I screamed. For at least a minute after impact, I was still conscious and I heard a sickening crack. But then I couldn't hear anything but my own pulse, it was loud.

I felt myself fall, unrestricted, against the cold floor. Then there was something wet on my face and all ability to feel left my body.

I wondered what would happen next, my thoughts jumbled and half completed before the next one came. My mind seemed to be screaming at me, my sight slowly diming.

I was scared...for me...for Franky ...for Johann...

I cried, I'm sure, if I was still able to.

My last thought was simply one word...'Johann'

And I died.