Lillian’s Story
A Vision Quest to Mount Rushmore
After her doctor told the unpleasant news that the latest round of radiation had shown only modest results and the tumour was still growing, Lillian was visibly disappointed.
“You know I have always thought of my life in terms of years not in terms of months. What am I supposed to do with my life now?“
“None of us know how much time we have. Is there anything you wanted to do in your life that you didn’t have a chance to do?“
“I’m sure this will sound strange, but I have always wanted to see Mount Rushmore.”
“The presidents, I am surprised,” her oncologist responded. “Why?”
What she would not tell him was that her mother and father had honeymooned at Mount Rushmore and they had lost the camera with all their pictures, and when the trouble came into her parents’s marriage, her mother always blamed the divorce on the loss of the camera, as an omen of things to come. Lillian had resolved to travel to Mount Rushmore, to find her parents’ camera and somehow bring them back together, before her untimely death.
“It’s more for the Lakota, the Black Hills, The last great native population before the European onslaught overwhelmed them,” she responded.
