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A pair of swans and their babies helped Naperville woman cope with battle against cancer

For one Naperville woman, a couple of swans helped make coping with cancer a little easier.

Nancy Havener, 63, has Stage 1 breast cancer, and underwent treatment earlier this year in Lisle.

One day on her way to radiation treatment, she saw something beautiful - a pair of swans swimming peacefully in a pond along Warrenville Road.

"On my way to radiation, I noticed these two swans," she said. "I am dabbling in photography, and I love bird photography and I love nature anyway, and I was just really thrilled to see these swans."

From then on, Havener would always keep an eye out for the birds when traveling to and from treatments.

"The cancer journey, of course, is a tough one, but every time I would go by and I would look for the swans, it would just really be a bright spot in my day," she said.

Toward the end of her treatment this summer, she got an extra gift: a bunch of baby swans.

Havener was so inspired she went out in July to the pond to take some photos of the swan family with her Nikon D90 camera.

The Daily Herald's DuPage County photo staff chose one of Havener's portraits of the feathery family as the winner of our August Photo Finish contest. She will receive a $50 gift card from PJ's Camera, 662 Roosevelt Road, Glen Ellyn.

The winning photo showcases the swan family swimming along in the Lisle pond.

With the water reflecting the swans and the soft hues of green and blue, the photograph looks like a painting.

"I just happened to get the swans where they were all together in a really good light, and it just worked out perfectly," Havener said.

"I like the photo because it is excellent technically, but also because the photographer saw an interesting subject and kept watching it for several days," DuPage Photo Director Scott Sanders said. "Her perseverance paid off with a really nice photo."

The retired school band director said she has been dabbling in photography for the past few years and considers herself a nature and bird photographer.

"There's something about taking the pictures and then being able to enjoy whatever it was that you were experiencing that really touches something inside me, that makes me really want to pursue this even more," she said.

To Havener, the swans were a heavenly sight.

"I felt like it was a gift from God."

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