My husband and I wake into the narrow December dark. He brushes his teeth, dresses, then busies himself as I eat breakfast. His packed suitcase sits by the back door. It’s 5 AM, two days before Thanksgiving. At precisely 9 AM, the surgeon will remove my husband’s right kidney, the one he is 99% sure is cancerous.

That’s the start of “A Passing Shadow,” the December Reflections column in AJN. Written by Gail Lukasik, a poet and the author of several literary mysteries, this hopeful but tonally nuanced piece vividly evokes the uncertainty that all cancer survivors and their loved ones must live with. Click the link or the image above to read it in entirety.—JM, senior editor

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