The end of radiation

I had 33 radiation treatments. Imagine: every day for 7 weeks driving across the Tacoma Tide Flats, clutching your spouse's hand, not saying anything because thoughts are too heavy for conversation, parking, walking through a waiting room littered with nervous family and friends waiting for their people to return, finding your hospital gown in a cubbie sloppily marked with masking tape bearing your name and sitting with other frightened patients wondering how they, too, ever got so sick.
As the other women I met in the ladies' dressing area finished their course of treatment, I always had a card waiting for them. There wasn't much to write other than "good luck" and "hope we never, ever have to come back here". The clinic had a little something as well. We got a certificate and a pink mug. My family tolerated the certificate on the refrigerator for exactly 5 days until they begged me to put it away. And the mug, well, it's been pushed further and further back in the closet on the top, most unreachable shelf.