Johnny Cash & the Last Song I Ever Played Before My Life Partner Died

A skeletal man, with yellow-tinged brown skin, laying in a bed with a wooden headboard, orange comfort bunched around his chest, he gazes at the camera while flashing a ‘Thumbs Up’ sign.

“What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away
In the end”

Cash’s rich, bass-baritone voice, filled with pain and longing, croons as haunting chords, four beats each — A, F, C, G — strum in the background.

“And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt.”

This was the last song I ever played when my life partner was alive.

Resting in a matrimonial bed, he sat up quickly. “Roll me into the other room,” he directed. His voice and demeanor restrained. I didn’t know it was the final hour of his life, and that he had precious, little life energy left.

His twenty-year old daughter napping in the hospital bed that a friend helped me squeeze through the bedroom door. Our five-year old son just…