Photography And Half-Thoughts By Mitchell Hegman

...because some of it is pretty and some of it is not.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

First Day of Spring

Today marks the first day of spring.  Last year, on the first day of spring, I stood beside my wife as she lay in a hospital bed.  She had been having great difficulty walking.  In fact, she was no longer able to lift her feet to climb a single step.
Two solid days of blood tests, x-rays, MRI images, and prodding delivered us to this point—me, Uyen, and a diminutive woman doctor whose given name was then, and is yet, unknown to me.
“You have cancer,” the doctor told Uyen.  “The cancer is terminal.  There is nothing we can do for you.”
“But nobody in my family has ever had cancer,” Uyen said plainly, gazing up at the doctor.  Soon, she turned to look at me.  My eyes failed to register properly.  Tears had already streaked down my cheeks and dropped away to the floor and bedding.
Welcome, the first day of spring.
My wife did not cry then and she did not cry in my presence at any time after that.  I was always the weaker of us.  Was me who scuttled off to unlit rooms and sobbed into my hands.  Was me who pulled off to the side of the road and rested my head against the steering wheel.  Was me swimming in uncertainty.
This morning, here on this first day of spring, I see me holding Uyen’s hand again…holding my wife’s hand in mine as she slowly dwindles away and becomes part of the sunlight and part of the night.
--Mitchell Hegman

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