The day Ivo died a solar storm erupted on the surface of the sun, invisible to the naked eye but creating a spectacular sunset. The great fiery mass hovered above the horizon long past its appointed hour, a grand display of splendor and beauty for the living.

I knew he was gone even before I went to check on him. He'd been fretful for weeks, no longer able to get out of bed on his own and falling repeatedly in his determination to retain his dignity and independence. He found fault with everything the nurses and I did to assist him, berating us and crying in frustration that he could no longer find the words to communicate his needs. Apahasia was taking its toll, intermittantly but steadily.

I knew because before he fell asleep forever, he took my hand in a way that told me he wanted me to stay, something he had not asked of me for days.

"Shall I read to you?" I proposed, knowing he would nod off long before I finished the first few pages.

"Sing," he growled weakly, summoning some of the old imperious Ivo. His physical discomfort had ruined his good manners decades before.

Atonished by the request - for I am hardly a singer and Ivo is tone deaf - I laughed low to myself and launched into the aria from Rosenkavalier. I wondered if he might remember it and to my delight he parroted back my terrible translation from so many lifetimes ago when we waltzed on the beach under the starry starry sky.

"Without me, without me, every day is a misery, with me, with me, no night is too long."

I kissed his hand, trying to calm my own trembling at the memory of the beginning of our torrential love affair. Had we once been so passionate? "You were a magnificent dancer," I murmured.

"I know," he said flatly, completely lucid. "I was five times grand champion ballroom dancer in college."

I snorted but it came out a strangled sob. I understood what was happening.

"We should go back this New Year's," I managed to smile through my tears. We hadn't been back to the Suffolk coast in years, not since his health had declined and he could no longer stay comfortable in the dank house.

"Too cold," he grumbled and my heart broke. How could Ivo, the malamute, the Arctic son, find anything too cold? I remembered his withering glare when I proposed not venturing out of the station in Antarctica as the rest of the team had returned earlier with frostbite and inside the artificial climate was a balmy 7 degrees celsius and one needed only two sweaters to feel comfortable. Of course we went out...

"You'll miss building your snowman!" I warned, situating the covers around him.

"Do you remember - " he began distantly but then he looked at me and stopped, confused.

I knew he was remembering Danny. Something they had done together.

"Remember what?" I asked softly, desperate to keep him with me just a little longer.

"Nothing," he said, turning away to close his eyes. "Tired."

"Then get some sleep, little prince," I whispered, kissing his warm cheek.

0o0o0o0o0

He left me sometime during the two hours I sat and fidgeted with the mail and my daily to-do list. I became aware of it when his raspy breathing - the end product of smoking - came slower and slower and then I realized that I couldn't hear it at all. I glanced across at him and I knew. Well before I stood and walked to him, I knew.

He lay serenely, at peace for the first time in a long time, his pale features as perfect in life as in death. I spoke to him, bent to gently shake him. I checked his pulse.

I called 9-9-9 and sat down to wait, uncertain what to do, what to think. I had known for a long time it was coming. Death takes us all in the end. But even while his vibrancy was subdued by the physical pains of aging, I had imagined he would go out fighting. I couldn't see Ivo as the "not with a bang but a whimper" type. Automatically I recited, "Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

I looked at him. How could this be? How could he leave me?

Yes, I am ashamed to admit that was my very next thought. I had been with Ivo for nearly half a century. What would I do now?

The house felt cold and empty and I walked out to the garden, grateful for the warm summer air that had once been the bane of Ivo's existence. So often we'd sat here, he and Martin and I. He'd given me my first kiss here, built his snowman, lectured me on astronomy.

I glanced at the sky. And that's when I saw it - that magnificent shimmering red ball hanging there, waiting. And then I realized, I knew why it was there. It was calling him, beckoning him to come, to play as only they knew how to play - the ferocity of their molten beings far too strange for this tame society. I imagined Ivo's blue eyes snapping ecstatically as he reached out for his true mother, to follow her home.

And still smiling as I cried, I whispered my goodbye and walked back into the house to wait for the ambulance.