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,

appointment of temporary guardian and conservator. Hearing set for Thursday morning at nine.”

“Thursday,” I said. “That’s two days.”

“That’s two days,” Gloria agreed. She pulled out a yellow legal pad. “So let’s get to work.” That night, Gloria first revoked the old medical power of attorney naming David. A hospital legal-office notary arrived fifteen minutes after Malcolm called and witnessed my bedside signature.

Next I named my forty-year church friend Joyce Whitaker as health care agent. She’d driven me to cardiology appointments for six months because my children were