Exactly one week before his fatal accident, Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Larry Canfield was hit while on his motorcycle and thrown over the car's hood.

He didn't even need a trip to the hospital. But his wife, Michelle, asked him that day whether he'd want to do something else. His answer: "I like riding the bike. I want to be a motor."

"He loved it," Michelle Canfield said from her home Monday. "He absolutely loved that job."

A week after the couple's conversation, Michelle Canfield would be left a widow with two young boys to raise. But she said she has no regrets.

"It's part of living. If you're going to go, you go doing something you love to do," said Canfield, 44. "I don't want to feel what I'm feeling, but I wouldn't have ever taken that away from him."

Sitting in her Galt home, surrounded by family, friends and countless bouquets, Canfield reflected on her 22-year love affair with her husband, who died Wednesday at age 43.

As a deputy assigned to the Rancho Cordova Police Department's motorcycle unit, he had been pursuing a speeding motorist on Coloma Road when he collided with another car. He died shortly after arriving at Mercy San Juan Medical Center.

Canfield was the fifth Sacramento County sheriff's deputy to die in the line of duty in the past four years.

His accident ended what Michelle Canfield described as a "perfect marriage" that can be traced back to a few jokes Larry Canfield made the very first time they spoke – a phone conversation set up by his brother.

He asked her, sight unseen, on a date. No, Michelle told Larry, she didn't do blind dates.

"That's OK," he said. "I'm not blind!"

She knew she was in for trouble.

A country boy since childhood, Larry Canfield grew up in the Galt area and graduated from Galt High. He spent four years in the Army, stationed in Texas, before returning to Sacramento, his wife said.

In 1997, he followed in the footsteps of his father – retired sheriff's Sgt. Bob Canfield – and joined the Sheriff's Department. He had been a Rancho Cordova motorcycle officer since 2004.

Colleagues and friends have described Canfield as a dedicated and dependable partner who was courteous and professional in his work.

That is, once he had woken up.

Michelle Canfield joked that her husband was the "grouchiest morning person you'd ever meet." And he didn't like coffee, so family and friends learned to avoid him for the first few hours of the day.

"I wouldn't talk to him until 8 o'clock, and I told him that," said Deputy Scott Padgett, a friend and fellow motorcycle officer. "Too grouchy."

Kids working in the barn on the family's 10 acres nicknamed him "Scary Larry" because he knew just how to instill fear in them. But it was all a ruse, his wife said.

He was "crusty on the outside and soft on the inside."

"He was a big pussy cat," Michelle Canfield said. "If you were Larry's friend, there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for you."

As the condolences have poured in since his death, she has come to learn Larry was there for anybody.

Michelle Canfield said she wants people to know her husband – and all cops – the way she has known them. Behind the badge, they're all just human beings, she said.

"There's this absolute fear out there, and a lack of love, toward peace officers. For some reason, they're the bad guys," she said. "They're not. They're the good guys. They're the ones out there to keep us alive."

Canfield said she is trying to stay strong, keeping herself surrounded by loved ones and busy with preparations for Thursday's funeral.

She does not cry in front of people, she said. While recounting memories of her husband – one of him chastising her for rolling through stop signs, another of their youngest son misinterpreting Larry's straight-faced joke – she instead laughs often.

Larry instilled that in her, Michelle said.

"He taught me one of the most vital things I could ever learn: It is far easier and better to laugh than to cry or to get angry, because crying and getting angry don't solve anything," she said. "That's the No. 1 thing he taught me and the No. 1 thing I'm thankful for."

There might not be much laughter, however, after Thursday, when Michelle Canfield said her real mourning will begin.

Call The Bee's Kim Minugh, (916) 321-1038.