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earlier on a blind date at a church hayride, and we’d go into Boulder to listen to the Freddie Henchie Band and gawk at all the hippies on “The Hill,” which was Colorado’s answer to Haight-Ashbury.
    Jean and I had fallen in love quickly, proving that opposites attract: She was as socially outgoing as I was shy. She had a crackerjack mind, hazel eyes, and an infectious laugh. She also knew what she wanted, enjoyed a joke, and was nurturing in a way I’d never experienced—all traits I found irresistible. A slight young woman at four feet, eleven inches and eighty-seven pounds, she’d climbed onto my lap on our second date and started making out with me, letting me know exactly how she felt. I was completely taken with her, and by the time we were seventeen, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Jean.
    A few years later, after I’d done my time in a junior college, and put in a year of basic training with the Air National Guard, she agreed to marry me. She transferred to the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, where she continued to study journalism and I went into the fine arts program. In June 1974, we received our diplomas, tied the knot, and started my first business, all in the same week.
    Although I’d spent the last few years working on weaving, sculpture, and painting, I’d decided to go into the family business, and opened a rendering plant. Buying cattle carcasses and processing the dead animals to make dog food, I jokingly referred to myself as a “used cow dealer.”
    Because I was so busy with the new operation and Jean was pursuing a law degree, we put off having children for a while, but as soon as she had that locked up, we were ready. In fact, Jean sat for the bar when she was eight months pregnant, and as expected, she handily passed the exam.
    Life seemed full of promise. Both of us had worked hard for what we’d achieved, and with a baby on the way we felt as if we had everything we’d ever hoped for. In 1979, after twelve hours of labor, Jean gave birth to our daughter by cesarean section. It was considered unorthodox at the time, but I was allowed in the operating room when the doctors pulled our girl, healthy and squalling, from her mother’s womb, and I took many, many photographs of the birth. Calling such a moment miraculous hardly describes the joy and intimacy of it, but that’s what it seemed to us. Our parents, siblings, and friends came by to celebrate our baby daughter, Elaine, the first grandchild for both sides of the family. I was sure life couldn’t get any better, and I was right. Everything was perfect.
    A year later, just after we’d bought our first house and little Elaine was starting to toddle around the yard, we got the devastating news: Jean had invasive breast cancer, which had already spread to her lymph nodes. Telling us about it, the doctor tried to remain professionally detached but was visibly rattled by what he’d seen on the mammography films. He scheduled Jean for surgery immediately, and within just a couple of days, she underwent a double mastectomy. By the week’s end she began chemotherapy.
    During Jean’s first treatment, she made small talk with the chemotherapist and mentioned that we were looking forward to having more children; little ones make life so rich, take you outside yourself, and help you to keep things in perspective—they even make trials like this one bearable. Tending to her IV, the doctor offhandedly told her we should wait. Well, of course, we’d hold off until Jean was feeling better . . . No, that’s not what he meant. He explained that he didn’t know if she’d be around to raise them. That stunned and silenced her, and I could imagine what she was thinking: Would she live to see Elaine get out of diapers, much less become an adult?
    We were both quiet during the seventy-mile drive back home from the hospital. Neither of us