I spent as much time as I could by her side those first days. When I wasn’t with her, I called her directly—she had a phone in her room, and hearing her voice mattered more than anything a nurse could have told me.

She sounded tired but steady. Never good—but steady.

I went home during the week, trying to keep my life functioning, calling her constantly, driving up when I could. Still, leaving felt wrong. Every mile back to Wilmington carried a low, persistent guilt.

I drove back to Chapel Hill first thing the next Friday morning—the 28th—feeling that guilt sharply. I had booked a hotel room from Friday through Sunday, planning to bring Lynn home when she was discharged.

And the doctors seemed confident.

They weren't putting her on oxygen.

They weren't talking about a crisis.

They weren't warning me about anything more than the usual CF care.

To me, that meant something simple and logical: If she truly couldn't breathe on her own, they wouldn't release her.

I didn't know – then - that some CF patients could be discharged with O₂ tanks. That wasn't our reality. So, I didn’t ask about whether she needed an O₂ tank. Our picture of CF never included tubes or tanks. If she needed that, I thought, she should be in the hospital until she was safe. Until she was fixed.

So, when they discharged her after about a week—around nine days—I believed what any reasonable person would:

They must think she's better. Better enough. Stable enough. I didn't secondguess it.

I didn't have the medical imagination to question it. I only saw that she was coming home with me, and so I clung to hope.

That hope meant I would do what seemed natural – go to work.

We went home believing the worst had passed.

We were wrong. But at the time, the hope was real. I needed to believe she was well.

Witnessing Trauma with My Clients

When I returned to work, I started noticing things with some of my clients.

Two of them with dissociative identity disorder (DID) introduced new ideas. One was Pentecostal and her religious predisposition was more literal with stories of speaking in tongues for example. Now she was introducing Satanic ceremonies to use her words.

Another client had said she thought her alter personalities were demons as opposed to parts of herself.

I felt like I needed to look on the internet to find out if any other clinicians had heard stories like this. I was not ready for what I was going to find out.

Overall, my clients with complex trauma histories started calling more often. I was being asked to listen to one horror story after another, hour after hour.

I had always been good at maintaining the right distance—grounded, steady, compassionate. But now that distance was eroding.

The focus on them was eroding as if I was in the memories, immersed and traumatized. This had not happened previously.

I kept trying to be the therapist they needed.

The Moment the Hope Broke

Lynn’s health started to decline again just over a week after we returned from the hospital. It didn't happen dramatically.

It was August 8, 2000. We had over a week where things had seemed like they would return to normal.

One late afternoon, I was reading in bed, and Lynn was starting to explain why she should move to the spare room. We had a larger TV in there and I was trying to process what she was saying.

"Bruce… I need you to move my nebulizer and help me open up the couch into a bed in the spare room. I can't get enough air to move from room to room."

I had thought she was better when she left the hospital not long ago. During this conversation, I felt something inside me start to lift away—not in a spiritual sense but literally: depersonalization—when one feels like one can't remain within their body. I imagine that out-of-body experiences are like this.

She must have moved and so did I. In my memory of this moment, I am floating up near the ceiling or somewhere outside my body.

She saw my face.

"Bruce," she said gently, "I wish you still talked to our friends. You need support… I can't be your source of support right now."

I nodded. But I felt numb.

I opened up the couch in that room and added linen, pillows and set up her nebulizer.

The Breaking Point

The next day, I was talking to her when I saw her moving toward the kitchen.

She paused. Then stopped.

"Hold me. I can't breathe..."

I rushed to her, wrapping my arms around her back—trying to hold her steady yet gentle. She seemed more fragile than ever.

Inside, I was screaming.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

But outside, I kept it together—barely. She couldn't walk to the kitchen. Not even that far.

There are days from this period I cannot place on a calendar.

From that point on, I structured my days around her body. I brought her breakfast before leaving for work. I came back at lunch with a hot meal. At the end of the day, I returned with dinner. It wasn’t heroic. It was automatic. She needed food, and I was there to bring it.

I know she called the clinic. They told her to wait.

Somewhere between that moment and her readmission to the hospital, I was going to work.

I had a range of clients with different needs, and occasionally— miraculously—my mind did focus on them.

Back at home with Lynn… I began bringing her meals to the spare room because she could no longer move without gasping for breath. She never asked for much. She just whispered, "Can you bring this or that to me?"

And of course I did.

But each time she asked, I felt a strange frustration. I think in pragmatic ways. I want to fix things. And this couldn't be fixed.

And underneath it all, a darker thought kept surfacing—one I'm ashamed to admit even now:

If she could get her own food, that would mean things were not as bad. If she could walk to the kitchen, it would mean she's not as sick as I'm afraid she is.

I never said she should get up and do something herself. But I thought it. And the fact that I was measuring her ability to move as evidence of whether I needed to panic—that made the guilt unbearable.

Things were happening so fast. I wasn't in therapy, so I had no one to consult.

I had a family. A brother and sister. A mother and father.

I called them for emotional support, guidance, a way to sort out my thoughts. Maybe advice. They wouldn't know that Lynn noticed things more than me, but talking to a person who has empathy and compassion would have allowed me to discover that. Any "advice" would have gotten me thinking. Isn't that why we call others for emotional support?

I just needed someone to help me think clearly when my own mind was fracturing. I needed what most people take for granted: a person who cares.

Their indifference made me come away thinking everything would be okay— even when it wasn't. That is how I experienced things.

Their indifference made denial feel reasonable.

Their lack of alarm gave me permission to deny what was right in front of me. It removed curiosity. It allowed me to reify my wish that life could go on the same—that Lynn would get better, that I could keep working, that nothing fundamental had to change.

I was wrong.

Years later, I thought: I should have called Thomas. Our mutual friend. Someone who would have understood.

But at the time, I tried my family first.

During those three days of waiting, I sighed—a sound that came out like frustration.

"Lynn," I began, and my voice came out wrong. Too loud. Too sharp. "Why are they making you wait? Don't you need to go back to the hospital now? Today?"

The guilt crashed over me immediately.

"I'm not mad at you," I said quickly. "Lynn, I'm not frustrated with you. I'm scared. I love you so much. I'm just... scared."

"I know," she said softly. "I love you too."

Her voice was tired but steady. She understood. She had always understood.

But hearing her say it—hearing the steadiness in her voice when mine had been so harsh—made the guilt worse.

I knelt beside the couch-bed.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm just so scared."

"I know," she said again. She reached for my hand.

I sat there, holding her hand, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on me.

Kneeling beside her, I couldn't escape the feeling that my love was selfish— that I was more afraid of losing what she gave me than focusing on what she needed.

"I love you," I whispered again.

"I love you too," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

She closed her eyes. She was too tired to say more.

And I knew—even as she reassured me—that she couldn't be the one to hold me together right now.

She had said it earlier, gently but clearly: "I can't be your source of support right now."

But I didn't know how to hold myself together without her.