Carol's husband was killed in a car accident last year.
Jim, only 52, was 1 home from work. The other driver was a teenager who had 2 a lot. Jim died at once. The teenager was in the 3 for less than three hours.
It was Carol's fiftieth birthday, and Jim had two plane tickets to Hawaii in his pocket. He was going to 4 her. However, he was killed by a drunken driver.
"How have you 5 this?" I asked Carol, a year later.
6 welled up (涌出) in her eyes. I thought I had said the 7thing, but she said, “It's all right. I want to 8you. The day I married Jim, I promised I would never let him leave the house in the morning 9telling him I loved him. He made the same10. It got to be a joke between us, and as we grew older it got to be a (n) 11 promise to keep.
"I remember running down the driveway, saying 'I love you' just before he drove out of my 12, or driving all the way to his office just to put a(n) 13 saying 'I love you' on his car. It was a funny 14.
"We made a lot of15 trying to say 'I love you' before noon every day of our married life.
"The morning Jim 16, he left a birthday card in the kitchen and then left 17. I heard the engine starting. Oh, no, I thought. I18 out quickly and knocked on the car window 19 he rolled it down.
"Here on my fiftieth birthday I, Carol Garret, want you, Mr James E. Garret, to 20 that 'I love you!'
"That's how I've survived, knowing that the last words I said to Jim were, 'I love you!'"
