Free Eternal Journey by Carol Hutton Page A

and carefully examined each breast for lumps.
    Despite it all, Anna always figured the odds were in her favor. When the ovarian tumor was discovered during a routine doctor’s
     visit, she wasn’t so sure. Of course, it didn’t help matters any that two of her friends had died from ovarian cancer in the
     previous ten months. It was now round three for Anna. Her mother had not said that
good
things happened in threes. More importantly, her mother was dead, so Anna had no one to ask.
    Anna had always been more terrified of cancer of the ovary than she was of breast cancer. It made no sense, really; she just
     was. Perhaps it was because of Gilda Radner. Both Anna and Beth had been devastated when Gilda died. It was almost as if they
     knew her, maybe because in a way they did, and Anna, in particular, felt it was so unfair for someone like that to die so
     young.
    Beth had been the only one who knew how terrified she was of ovarian cancer. Beth certainly had more than Anna’s fears on
     her mind at the time, leaving Anna to sort through her feelings on her own. Anna felt it was the strangest week of her life,
     that week between tumor detection and tumor removal. Despite all her practice with living with dread and fear of cancer, this
     was different. If someone like Gilda could die from this silent killer, at so young an age, then so could she. Again, Anna
     thought, cancer changes everything.
    “It won’t be malignant, Annie,” Beth had said over the phone, “you have too much left to do.”
    Beth had been right. Anna ended up having painful abdominal surgery and she lost all her reproductive organs. But she did
     not have cancer.
    It wasn’t that Anna didn’t think about her good fortune; she did, all the time. She still couldn’t imagine going through all
     that surgery and having it be only the beginning of treatment. It was that she never focused on the hysterectomy part at all
     until after Beth died. Anna figured the odds had been in her favor three times now, but, as any woman who has experienced
     this surgery will tell you, it hurts. It hurts like hell for a while, and it hurts in your heart for a long time.
    People say the stupidest things, Anna thought to herself. As a psychologist, she figured she had the right and the credentials
     to believe this to be true. After all, she had spent years counseling victims of stupid, hurtful, even cruel, verbal attacks
     from mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, children and siblings, teachers, bosses and co-workers, nurses, doctors, and
     religious and political figures. As she got older, Anna was less and less convinced that people were really as stupid or clueless
     as they tried to appear when caught hurting another person, or a group of human beings, with their words.
    She knew in the scheme of things she had been pretty lucky. So when some of her very educated, quite intelligent friends,
     colleagues, and even her family rendered their unsolicited opinions about the uselessness of the organs she had just lost,
     Anna pretty much dismissed it as anxiety over the situation, or relief that she did not have cancer. But now, as she stood
     full face looking at her body with its scars, Anna started to feel quite angry, then hurt, and finally very, very alone. No
     one could ever know the meaning of this event in her life. That was not what bothered her. But were they really so stupid
     that they thought there was none? As she traced the scar with her fingers, tears fell like raindrops on the cold white tile
     floor.
    “Beth, you never did tell me what it is that I have left to do,” Anna said through her tears.
    A loud ring penetrated the silence and, since Becky and Michael had a phone in the bathroom, Anna instinctively reached for
     the receiver. By the time she picked up, the answering machine had kicked on, so Anna very carefully replaced the phone back
     on the hook. She didn’t want to talk to anyone anyway.
    Anna blew her hair dry, then pulled on a