“I did not.”
“You made Dad take three pictures.”
“Because he kept cutting off your head.”
Linda laughed.
Then her expression softened.
“You always talk about Mom’s operation like her life stopped there.”
Mom’s smile faded.
Linda pointed toward the photograph.
“Look at her.”
Mom did.
“That summer she went swimming with us.”
Mom’s eyes shifted.
“She went back to her garden.”
Linda smiled through tears.
“She danced at my wedding.”
Then she added:
“And she complained about my cooking for another twenty years.”
Mom laughed.
“I forgot about the swimming.”
“I know.”
For decades, that photograph had represented one thing to Mom.
Cancer.
Loss.
What had been taken.
But looking at it now, something changed.
Grandma was standing there after the mastectomy.
Alive.
Smiling.
Still herself.
Still living.
We waited four more days.
They were some of the longest days I can remember.
