We woke to a glorious dawn in Lubbock, Texas, on the last day of the year. A year that had brought Corinne a coveted Social Security number and a new job working with her good friend. A job that promised health insurance and disability income insurance and life insurance, if only a modest wage. A year that had brought her a painful "cyst" in her neck that raised the specter of cancer… but after thousands of dollars in diagnostic expenses, we learned that there was no cancer. Then we learned that there was. A firing. Appointments with lawyers. A first wedding anniversary. Half a year of x-rays and CT scans and MRI's, surgeries and chemotherapy. And the depletion of our savings.

We would sleep in our home on the mountainside that night.