Brett woke up the next morning at 6.45 a.m.

the sun had just climbed over the distant horizon and he could see its fiery orange

brilliance out of his hospital room window. It felt warm and comforting. He just stared as it

slowly rose higher in the sky. Everything was quiet. The commotion usually heard on the hospital floor was almost zero.

The world was just waking up.

Brett shook his head trying to clear some of the grogginess induced by whatever it was they had injected into his veins the night before.

His memories of yelling at Tommy came back, as did pieces of the conversation about his dad.

Brett didn't want to go there. He knew he shouldn't be stressed.

He shifted his focus to Sherry. There she was again, curled up in the chair next to his bed, asleep, close, connected.

Brett studied her gentle features as the morning sun bathed her skin and made it glow ever so softly.

He took in every detail of her face, the lines, the textures, the beauty. What a fool I've been, he thought to himself. the wonderful wife and mother she had been and that he had been everything short of what she was.

That the effort he had put into the family was certainly not up to par with hers.

Brett felt ashamed in that moment, a shame that it took a crisis

like this to make him see what a disappointment he was. It was too painful to wallow in his shortcomings. He needed to get up. Off the bed like the useless

failure that he felt he was.

Not wanting to wake Sherry, Brett slowly rolled out of bed and walked over to the window to look outside.

Before him was the wide open sky, clear and blue, a like canopy of clouds floating aimlessly to the east.

Brett rubbed his arm, scratching the two little puncture marks that had scabbed up where

the IV had been

been inserted. He marveled at the miracle of modern medicine and how it could save lives.

It gave him a fresh perspective as he stared out at the wide open clear sky.

Sherry moaned in her sleep and shifted slightly.

...