June 6th, 2005, a day of my deepest grief, a day I will never forget for the rest of my life. Never did I expect that Ellen would leave me on this day without saying farewell to me, her husband who had known her, loved her and spent twenty years with her.

Early that morning, I used the bathroom downstairs in order not to disturb her sleep. As I was heading towards the door, I heard the sounds she was making in the bathroom upstairs. I had no idea this was to be the last sound that I was to hear from her. Without kissing her, hugging her or even saying goodbye to her, I left for work in a hurry. When I came home that evening, the house was silent. I didn’t hear her greeting like usual. Seeing she was not in the kitchen, I went upstairs to look for her. I found her in the bedroom, lying in bed, peaceful in sleep. I wanted to wake her up and ask her if she was not feeling well. She had never gone to bed that early. But the moment I touched her, I was stunned. Her body was cold as ice, totally different from the warm and fragrant body that I used to hold for the past twenty years. She would not open her beautiful eyes. She would no longer speak to me. She would no longer laugh, beaming with radiance. She left me without saying a word. Maybe she had been too exhausted. Maybe she wanted to sleep more, just a little bit more. But she never woke up from that sleep.

Just the Sunday before, she had worked overtime in the morning and had her facial done in the afternoon to prepare herself for a presentation at an important conference. Being a perfectionist, she not only kept revising her draft for the presentation, she also wanted to make herself prettier. But she never made it to the podium. She never touched the breakfast that I left for her. The two moon cakes still stayed in the box. The receipts from her Sunday shopping lay on the kitchen table. In the freezer, she had stored ground meat and ribs for me so that I would cook for myself while she was away for her conference. She had separated them in freeze bags and labeled each bag like samples in the lab. She always put a list of things to do on the dining table. Whenever she completed a task, she would cross it out.