A Picture is Worth a Thousand Tears

Last week, in the middle of my school day, I was doing some research on a computer in our library. All of a sudden, I found myself looking at a picture of an aortic aneurysm (my mother died as the result of surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm), and without warning I burst into tears. It was like I was seeing my mother's heart, and her very large aneurysm. My stomach lurched, my breath stopped, and I was plunged into a state of deep shock and grief. I have not been able to shake the memory of that picture. You can never un-see something. I wonder if my mother saw a picture of her aneurysm before she agreed to surgery. I'm lucky - I can still ask my father.