After Heart Surgery, I Woke Up to Learn My Three Children Had Gone Home Because Hospital Parking Was Too Expensive. I Lay There in Tears Until a Well-Dressed Stranger Entered,

me.

“She should hear it too,” he said. “If anybody comes to this floor asking about you tonight, I want the nurses to know.” It concerned my home, of course.

Frank and I purchased our small green-and-white, two-bedroom Ballard bungalow in 1986 for $94,000, borrowing the down payment from his father. It had a porch swing and a backyard cherry tree our children climbed. Frank died nine years ago, when it was fully paid off; I still lived there and used the swing. The folder valued it at $1.