Five days after my husband died and a week before our daughter was accepted into Vassar, my sister had her breasts augmented. Erica traded in her Wonder Bra for silicone implants on my third day of sitting Shiva, following a fiery debate on the correlation between beta blockers and sexual dysfunction. Our accountant, Mannie Wallenstein, argued the loudest and the longest while his tow-headed wife, twenty-six years his junior, knitted quietly in the corner. Every now and then, the transplanted school teacher from Little Rock looked up from her 4-ply acrylic and smiled seductively at my husband's theatrical agent. The clean-shaven mensch from Little Neck divided his attention between shelling walnuts (with the heel of his loafer) and reciting the lines of my husband's most lucrative beer commercial (Bud Light).

This doomed flirtation irked Mannie Wallenstein's wife and, if my memory serves me, she drowned her personal sorrows in the systematic consumption of lunch: broccoli quiche, mini-eggrolls, pasta salad with chickpeas, and diced pineapple. In a last ditch effort, the temptress tossed her bottled hair like a fresh spinach salad, and blurted out, "Hey, y'all! This is my very first Shiva. I never knew a Jew who died before!" She batted her eyelashes in Morse Code. I translated: Pass me a slice of Coconut Custard Pie, Jewess. Now, ten years later, it's still unclear to me whether it was before or after Mannie Wallenstein served his wife tofu lasagna that I became violently ill. The last thing I heard before I retched into my potted White Athurium was my sister's voice.

"Hey, shiksa," Erica hissed. "Did you ever hear of Franz Kafka or Marc Chagall or Harry Houdini, you moron?"

You forgot Sarah Bernhardt and Jesus, I thought, as the foliage of my favorite houseplant bent under the added weight. "Neil!" I choked. "You never said good-bye! How could you? How could you?"

I was thinking of all of these things today when I curled into bed with the remote. It's Super Bowl Sunday -- ten years since my husband died. Like my prized White Athurium, he turned yellow at the edges and then he was gone.

As the screen warmed into focus, I bolted upright and screamed. There he was! On television! Before I could raise the volume, my husband removed his football helmet and reached for a Bud Light. He batted his eyelashes in Morse Code. I translated: I love you, Sweetheart. Good-bye.

"I love you, too, Neil," I answered. "Good-bye."

I snuggled under the covers as the television cast a pale light against the darkroom. "Hey, shiksa!" I cried, shaking my fist at the sports announcer. "Did you ever hear of Neil Feldman?"