When I was dying, my daughter flew north to say goodbye. Her beloved said that when I heard my daughter’s voice, my heart beat stronger. Watching the monitor, they said: “Look, she knows it’s you.” I slept like a gray-haired sleeping beauty, but my heart woke. Months later, I wobbled on the beach with a cane, watching my daughter and her beloved in the waves. People stared at them holding hands – one deep brown, one pale and burning. I wondered how to protect them without my land legs, when all I was is a beating heart on the hot sand.