What keeps coming into my mind are the photos of you from the years before I was born and from when I was too young to remember you.
The school photos with your cheeks rosy and your eyes shining, shy but hopeful, dark hair framing your face. The one on your wedding day, the same shy, hopeful smile as you stood beside your man. The one of you holding your newborn daughter, your face drawn from exhaustion.
I wonder why these images are so much more vivid to me than the memories I have of you.
Selfishly, I feel grateful to have these images of you in my mind rather than the image of you after all of your months of silent pain and wasting. Maybe that’s why you kept so quiet. For us.
Still, the miles between Utah and Ohio seem so very long.
I didn’t expect to not see you again.
Imperfect Happiness 
any actual news? is the time short? thinking of you! and what a precious ode this is.
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No news as of this evening. She’s in the hospital getting “comfort care.” The doctors said they are surprised she’s lasted this long, so we’re not expecting it to be much longer. She first noticed the lumps almost ten years ago, but being self-employed, she and my uncle could never afford health insurance so she never saw a doctor. Forty-nine years old.
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