Changes

Last week, I went to San Francisco General——my old cancer-stompin’ grounds——for a CT scan appointment. When I rolled up to the hospital from 22nd and Potrero, I stared with awe at the new hospital building under construction. It had only been three or four months since the last time I visited. In that short time, seven stories of steel beams had been erected by the historic brick buildings that my mom does not like to see because it brings back “malas memorias.” The exoskeleton of a bridge connecting the old hospital to what will be the new one was fused. As I approached with my bicycle by my side, a huge smile came over me. I snapped a picture to document this unfolding change.

When I walked up to the fence that gated off the construction site, I felt overcome with joy as I stared up at the building under development. Part of the new foundation is being built over the rotunda where I told my mom I had lymphoma over three years before. It was a strange sensation, as if part of my history was being literally paved over. But in the end, I smiled with wide eyes, amazed to behold all this change. To be alive for it.