I'd done what I could to get there, to be there with her that Sunday evening, February 24th. I didn't make it. But I DID see her. She'd gone into the hospital the Friday before with debilitating abdominal cramps. Doctors were confident they knew the cause of her discomfort, and assured my mom and Jim that a simple, routine procedure would have her home Saturday morning, "feeling like a new woman." What they found instead was a dead colon, killed for lack of blood supply by a tumor that had grown exponentially over the course of three weeks since its initial diagnosis, choking off the main vessel. The surgeon reported, "the cancer was everywhere." I jumped online to book a flight, but a dastardly Rocky Mountain blizzard had other plans, for the Denver airport, for all Western Slope airports, and for me. All Saturday afternoon and evening flights from here were canceled. No sleep, I left early the next morning, drove through the drifting white over four