 In 1985 I spent 19 days in a 28-bed ward for critically ill women. When it was tea time, three of the women closest to my bed joined me at a small table to talk and drink our tea. They were poor women from towns outside of London. Despite the differences between them and me, we were all sick, each of us in danger of dying. We’d been talking among ourselves for a few days when one of the women put down her cup and asked, “If you could wish for anything, what would you wish for?”
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 I’d been wanting to go to Machu Pichu for a long time, but none of the plans worked out. When I saw the REI Peru trip advertised, I immediately signed up, but still had to be approved. A woman called to assess whether I was up to the degree of hiking difficulty. I told her I was 83, in good shape, that I hiked regularly, sometimes up to 14 miles. She signed me up but, given my age, she said I could not do one of the hikes that involved climbing two peaks of 14, 700,’ that I would do the alternative hike. I tried to change her mind by telling her I’d climbed Wheeler Peak in Taos, which is 13,100,’ but this had no effect. I wished I could participate in the two-peak hike, but she made it clear it wouldn’t be possible.
 Maria, my old friend of many years was ill, refusing to eat. She told her caregivers that if I’d come to be with her, she’d start eating. I arrived the next day. She told me she had lived a long life and wanted to die but didn’t feel she could do so peacefully. I asked if there was anything I could do to help her feel calm in this last stage of her life.
 In early August of 2006 I was still recuperating from a bout of leukemia—of being hospitalized, medicalized, and chemoized. Fatigue was my constant companion. Depression hovered, ready to overwhelm me at any moment. Doubts about my ability to recoup physically assailed me. Although I was increasing my stamina, strength and fitness by walking up hills around where I live, it wasn’t enough to lift my spirits. I decided I needed to climb Atalaya, 9200’, about seven miles round trip. It was one of the first mountain hikes I did after moving to Santa Fe in 2001 and remained a challenge even when I was well. I set a target date—the last Wednesday in August.  When I moved to New Mexico in 2001 I immediately joined a tennis club so I could meet people to play with. Finding tennis partners was not difficult. Playing through the pain in my neck and right shoulder, from too much tennis where I previously lived, was increasingly difficult. I contemplated not playing but I’d just bought two new pairs of sneakers and a bunch of tennis balls. When a workshop led by my tai chi teacher was offered, I signed up. After the workshop was over, I asked if he had any suggestions as to how I might play with less pain. It never occurred to me that I could play with no pain. “I have one,” he said. “Change your game.” What? I’d been playing for more than fifty years, with greater and lesser success. Now he wanted me to start over? It seemed too ridiculous to contemplate. Still, pain spoke for me. I signed up for a series of lessons.
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Nancy King is a widely published author and a professor emerita at the University of Delaware, where she has taught theater, drama, playwriting, creative writing, and multidisciplinary studies with an emphasis on world literature. She has published seven previous works of nonfiction and five novels. Her new memoir, Breaking the Silence, explores the power of stories in healing from trauma and abuse. Her career has emphasized the use of her own experience in being silenced to encourage students to find their voices and to express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with authenticity, as a way to add meaning to their lives.
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