Tomorrow will mark six years since I became a member of The Worst Club Ever. Since then many of you have joined me. Some of you lost your spouse suddenly and dramatically like I did. Some of you in much slower and somehow more sinister ways. We mark those days for sure, but we don’t celebrate them.

The truth for me is that February 11 is the official day of Scott’s death, but it is not the day he died. That is today, February 10.

This is the day he collapsed on our driveway as I was trying to get him to the ER.

This is the day the firetruck parked in front of my house for the second time that week. but this time the ambulance parked in the alley.

This is day the firefighters fought furiously to save him. And one of them held me as I dialed Molly with shaking hands. Come! And she did.

This is the day they told me in the ER that Scott had no brain activity.

This is the day my children all came to the ER and we sat there until they moved him to ICU.

This is the day others came: Ted and Leigh Ann, Rod and Lauren, Diane and Jeff, Mike and Kathy. Richard and Tamala kept the babies. There were others who came and went and whose faces are fuzzier to me now.

This is the day they kept Scott alive so his brother Mark and daughter Erin could get there to say goodbye.

This is the day Adam came home with me, and we cleared the house of the machines, walkers, medicines, and reminders of Scott’s knee surgery just days before.

This is the day I slept alone in my bed, without Scott’s big, comforting presence.

Tomorrow I will take off his wedding ring that I have worn since it was nearly lost in the hospital six years ago, when I put it on for safekeeping, and I will mark the day.

But, this is the day Scott died.