Svetlana

I woke with a horse standing over me.

Okay.  The horse is only a foot tall and a flat metal cutout affixed to the wall above my bed in a motel.  But still not my normal way of waking.

I am in Gillette, Wyoming.

I am here for the funeral services of my nephew’s mother-in-law, Svetlana.  She passed just last week.  Another victim of cancer.

Cancer.

I don’t hate much.

Cancer, I hate.

Svetlana, and my Nephew’s wife, Natalia, came to this country from Uzbekistan. Situated below Russia and having a small section of border shared with Afghanistan, Uzbekistan was once a part of the Soviet republic.  Svetlana and Natalia spoke Russian as their native tongue.  Some of her family lives in Moscow.

My Nephew, a former Navy SEAL, met Natalia in Afghanistan.  She, at the time, was working as an interpreter at the Russian consulate.  My Nephew was working security details for Brown and Root.

A match made in war.

Today we say farewell to Svetlana, mother of Natalia. 

Svetlana will be committed to the earth.  Tomorrow horses will be above her.  Horses on the long prairie.  Horses prancing through the honey-colored grass at summer’s end.

—Mitchell Hegman