A shadow materialized

reading Barbara Molinard and Philippa Snow through illness

Two weeks before I was diagnosed with cancer for the second time in nine months, I cradled a dead crow in my arms. My husband and I had seen it from the front window; we panicked as the bird flapped in half-bodied paralysis along the sidewalk. We couldn’t save it, so we snapped its neck. Before we buried the body, I stroked its feathers and lit candles.…