Names of the Dead

After my husband lost his job of 13 years due to outsourcing, we had to move from California back to Arizona. Our daughter, Elizabeth, decided to stay in California. Although her employers had promised to look into employee health insurance, they had not done so yet, so we told her whenever she had to go to the doctor to just go and we would pay for it. We had been sending a payment to the doctor every month, trying to stay ahead of her health needs, while paying hundreds every month to an insurance company for a policy for us. Some months later, Elizabeth said she'd been awfully tired, but attributed it to a recent move, long hours at work and her cat, Bert, who woke her up sometimes. I told her she ought to go to the doctor, but she didn't want to cost us if she didn't have to. I made her promise to go if she didn't feel better soon. I look back now and wish I could have seen her in person; perhaps I would have known something was really wrong and I would have taken her to the doctor right away. Days later, my husband and I were ready to head back to Arizona from an optical convention in Las Vegas, we stopped to call our son, who was watching the house; he told us Elizabeth had been taken to hospital. We called the hospital; they told us we ought to get there as quickly as we could. We knew it was serious and we diverted to California. Elizabeth apparently had an undiagnosed heart condition. She never regained consciousness. Surrounded by all her brothers, brothers-in-law, her sister, niece, and many, many friends, my beautiful Elizabeth died two days later -- the day after her 26th birthday. Bert now lives with us.