Any pretense that the comedian was clean was shattered a year later. Hedberg had just wrapped up a series of shows at an Austin comedy club when he and Lynn were stopped at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. A federal officer opened up a red bag covered with white flowers that had Hedberg's name on it. Inside was a Red Bull can with three syringes and a smudge of heroin on the bottom. When the officer searched Hedberg's backpack he found a fistful of pills — Valium and Xanax, as it turned out — that the comedian said he'd gotten from someone downtown. (He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor drug charge.)

Hedberg spent two nights in jail, where a routine examination showed that an infection had been festering in his right leg for months. He was shipped to a county hospital, and while he was there, doctors told Shawcroft the leg was in alarmingly bad shape. Mary and Arne arranged to have Mitch transported to a Houston hospital, where surgeons operated for 13 hours. The leg was saved — though Hedberg would limp for the rest of his life. But after that nobody had any illusions that Hedberg was actually okay. In fact, everyone was scared to death. Everyone except Shawcroft. ''To me it was a relief,'' she says quietly. ''I mean, when he got arrested it was very scary. But it got us to stop working for a couple of months and almost back to health. For a while.''

I haven't slept for 10 days. Because that would be too long.

Lynn Shawcroft sits in a hotel in Beverly Hills. The red paint on her nails is flaked and chewed. Her face is puffed and her eyes are hidden by dark sunglasses. Ripped jeans dangle over dirty sneakers. She looks a wreck.

''I'm scared,'' she says in a thin, watery voice. ''I don't know if I can do this.''

''Here's the thing you really need to know,'' says Kagan, who spent significant time with both Shawcroft and Hedberg. ''The story of Mitch Hedberg is a love story. A great love story.'' Today, Shawcroft just looks at her shoes and says, ''It is a love story. It is, it is, it is.''

The time since Hedberg's death has been tough on Shawcroft. There was the funeral. The endless condolence cards to answer. In fact, since her husband's passing, she has become extremely hard to reach, refusing interview requests and avoiding most friends' telephone calls. Now, as she opens up for the first time, it's clear that the little moments hurt the most. ''I opened one of his journals after he died,'' she says, ''and there was a line, 'Do you believe in Gosh?''' She grins. ''The f---er could write. I'd turn around and he'd have five new jokes.''

She starts shaking a bit as she remembers the end. ''We were going to Baltimore [that last night]]. We had been in New York for all these days, and we had kept jumping hotels.... It was the most confusing night of my life. I was in the bedroom, and then I went in the bathroom. And when I came out he didn't look right. So I grabbed him and tried to give him mouth-to-mouth and called 911.''

''It's so hard. How am I going to do this? He was beyond even a best friend. He loved monster movies.'' She looks up as if to say Betcha didn't know that. ''He did. He couldn't watch them on his own, though. He'd make me watch them with him.''

She stops, gulps air, and takes off her sunglasses. Her eyes are wet with tears.

The thing that's depressing about tennis is no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They're f---in' relentless.

Back in 2003, after he was released from the hospital, Hedberg fought his way back to performing, playing 54 cities around the country with Dave Attell and Lewis Black. He missed only one show on that tour, in Phoenix. He had gotten stuck in traffic.

But as the money grew better and better — a Comedy Central special and a CD had sent his price tag as high as $25,000 for a night's work — his health was getting worse and worse. It didn't help that he had been on the road for six years straight. There was never a vacation. He and Shawcroft rarely made it to their home in the mountains outside of L.A., and then it was just a quick stop to collect piles of mail. They traveled so much that Mitch laid out $84,000 for a motor home, the only way he could see to drive from gig to gig. ''He was working too hard,'' Shawcroft says. ''He partied hard, too, but I think everyone attributed everything to drugs without realizing that he was burning out as well. Now I look back and wish when we were in Texas I had just said, 'No more.' No more.''

His last tour — with singing comedian Stephen Lynch — was tough. For the first time in Hedberg's 19-year career, there were reports of bad shows, sets where he would show up obviously drunk or stoned and lie on his back in the middle of the stage and burble nonsense. ''That happened toward the end,'' says Clear Channel's Geof Wills, who booked his last two tours. ''Sometimes [he was] brilliant. Other times I thought, 'Hey, Mitch, that wasn't the greatest thing in the world.' He was clearly compromised.''

The final six shows at Carolines in March of this year were typical. About half of them were bad. Not awful. Just bad. Mitch would look at his notes and fret when the jokes didn't sing, or just speed through his set. The rest were phenomenal, though, glorious 60-minute blocks that left people crying into their two-drink minimums.

It's still unclear what exactly killed him. His parents say he struggled with peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis all his life, and Shawcroft, who has not released the coroner's report to the public, confirms it was a heart attack. Even so, speculation persists that drugs might have played a role. ''Does it really matter?'' asks Becky. ''He's gone.''

Shortly after the funeral in Minnesota, something remarkable happened. Fans who had never met Hedberg — kids who listened to the albums once a day and housewives who thought escalators and bullfrogs could be funny as hell — went online to trade stories and jokes and to work out their grief. Other comedians chuckled over his odd behavior and A-plus material. Staff at clubs remembered his generosity. (''He didn't care if you were the guy emptying the Dumpster, he'd tip you into the next tax bracket,'' laughs Kagan.) They mobbed the memorials held around the country. Shut down the website. Bought up the merchandise. Hundreds of letters poured in to Mary and Arne's house in Minnesota, and the phone didn't stop ringing.

''My goodness, the calls,'' says Mary. ''We had one gentleman call from Georgia to say, 'You don't know me. But I loved your son, and I just wanted you to know that.' And just, you know, just...those things just meant so much to us.''

''He left a lot of brilliant comedy for people,'' says Becky, letting a smile play across his lips. ''My grandkids are going to listen to his records and get him. I really like that. The bottom line is this: He was a stubborn motherf---er who was also just a really good dude. He lived his life the way he wanted to live it. And you know what? He was a f---ing genius. And that's the truth.''

All About Mitch Hedberg