Natushka

"I don't care how long you're gone ... a year can't hurt no worse than a day."

Natushka called me in June 2003, twenty years almost to the day since I first met her.  I hadn't talked to her in a number of years and so it was at first a pleasant surprise.  We chit-chatted for a few minutes, catching up with each other, but I could sense she had something to tell me.  She said she had a little request for me and asked if I would send her a print of one of the portraits I had made of her almost 10 years earlier.  I said sure, of course I would, and then I asked why after all these years.  She fought back the tears and told me she recently had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in her colon and that the cancer had spread to her liver - it was stage IV colorectal cancer and the prognosis was not good.  Natushka wanted the portrait for her funeral. 

I was finally able to visit Natushka in September of that year.  It was good to see her again, but the toll the cancer had taken on her was evident.  She had lost a lot of weight and looked frail and scared.  The tumors in her liver were inoperable due to their size and location.  A pump had been implanted in her lower right abdomen which directed chemo to the tumors in her liver in hopes of reducing their size.  Every two weeks she had to travel 2 hours to Pittsburgh to have the pump refilled, with either chemo or a saline solution, depending on her blood work. 

I returned again in December and with each day of that visit, Natushka opened up more and more to me, sharing both optimism and pessimism.  It became easier to talk about death and dying, but we talked as much about life and living.  She asked me if I would photograph her as she went through this ordeal, hoping that it might help someone someday.  

Natushka never gave up hope and she fought hard.  But, on July 8, 2007 she lost her battle.  I saw her the week before she passed away and one of the last things she said to me was "a year can't hurt no worse than a day".  She was referring to a quote in a book by Larry McMurtry, given to her many years ago along with a poem by the one person in her life that she claimed truly loved her.  Dr. C, as she called him, passed away 17 years earlier, almost to the day.  I hope they're together again.

As hard as this experience was, I am forever grateful to Natushka for calling me that June day. Rest well Negrita.