I married a stranger from a hospital waiting room so he wouldn’t d!e alone — after our one-week marriage, his lawyer handed me his backpack, saying, “He wanted you to know the truth.”

I was twenty-nine and still trying to find my way through the grief of losing my mother.

Volunteering at a hospital became the only thing that made that pain feel like it had some purpose.

For almost a year, I spent time with patients who had no family beside them during their final days.