I spent my day looking for stray aluminum cans. 500 cans meant I’d be able to stay the night at the Salvation Army as long as I got to the recycling center before 5 o’clock. Anything short of that meant I’d get to sleep in the woods. I really didn’t like sleeping in the woods. I had a tarp I could set up as a shelter from the rain, but it didn’t help a whole lot when it had been raining earlier in the day. That wasn’t the real problem with sleeping there, though. The real problem was that the woods were inhabited by other people, some of whom weren’t so nice.

I was terrified that someone would try to rape me and find out my secret. I don’t guess just being straight out raped wouldn't be any better, but I was terrified someone would find out that I was truly a male underneath the ragged skirt and top

It wasn’t like I could complain. I’d had almost 40 years with my husband, sleeping every night in his embrace. He loved to play with my breasts and the feeling of his hardness nestling into my butt cheeks never failed to arouse me. It was just that now, when there was nothing but the emptiness of the woods to hold me, I was frightened.

There was a while where I had the help of some other women, but now they were gone. Now I was out there alone with no one to help me, no place to sleep without the fear. I drew my thin coat around me in the subzero cold and shivered myself to sleep.

I prayed to some unknown god that I would not wake up in the morning and lo! This night, my prayer was answered. Somewhere in the night, I felt a pain in my chest and I couldn’t breathe. I spent the time while I was gasping out my last breath thanking some nameless god for an end to my suffering. I waited for the white light, for my love to welcome me into his arms, but that was all some cruel myth. My life faded to blackness, the peace of oblivion.