Hi, I'm Nora Mcnerney, and this is Terrible.

Thanks for asking.

On November 25th, 2014, I was 31 years old, sitting on the edge of my bed and my

LLB in pajamas, staring at my reflection in the full-length mirror that had been in the

house before we'd bought it.

This mirror faced our bed in a way that was somewhat uncomfortable because it implied

we had hung it there for sex reasons.

And I wanted to laugh about that, about how sexy it was that we hung a mirror lengthwise

in front of just a portion of our bed, but there was no one there to receive my joke.

I had started the day as a wife, I was ending it as a widow.

Did I look different?

I wondered.

Had the change registered on my face the same way it had registered inside of me.

I was still 31 on the outside, the same blue eyes, the same purple hair, the same pajamas,

the same retainer, the same house, the same bed spread.

And all of this betrayed the fact that I knew with certainty that I'd aged 150 years

today, listening to my husband's lungs take their last breath, feeling his heart stop.

Over the past two weeks of hospice care, the past three years of brain cancer, my universe

had both contracted and expanded.

Our physical world was smaller, a tight loop containing the hospital, our living room,

our bedroom.

But our psychological world had grown immensely.

...