About five years ago, I started noticing some soreness in my right breast. I tried to keep track of when it would come and go, how consistent it was, and how intense it was. It became a concern, so much so that I started speaking with a few women I trusted. I even made the phone call to my mom; I was scared, didn’t have insurance and didn’t know what to do. My Mom convinced me to get insurance and to get myself checked out as soon as possible. Just about an hour passed by before my phone rang, it was my Mom telling me she had breast cancer that was in stage IV.
She had known for about 6 months and kept it to herself and her boyfriend. She explained to me how she bumped herself against a bed post, how the lump didn’t seem to go away and how the doctor’s diagnosis was not something she fathomed as even possible. She said she felt great and didn’t believe them, but the doctor was alarmed so much, that they questioned if she had started looking at arrangements for her own death. She decided to change her diet, and was using every natural remedy possible and seeing her numbers drop. She believed she was going to make it through it, and that we would all be going to Disneyland to celebrate when she was well again. For months she told me there was no need for me to go out to visit her, that she would be well in no time and that I shouldn’t lose the time at work or change my life around just because of this bump in the road.
On one of our weekly phone calls she spoke to me in a tearful voice, “I’m starting chemotherapy, Katie.”
My heart sank.
“I met a doctor that told me he can get this out of my system in 6 treatments. I’m going to do it.” Her voice sounded stronger. “I’m going to kick this out of my system!”
At the time, I didn’t know anything about cancer. I didn’t know what stage IV was. I didn’t have any idea what my mom was about to experience. I spoke to her on a weekly basis to check in. It was something I started doing when she had her 52nd birthday…52 weeks in a year, 52 phone calls. Until then my memory box was full of pain and hurts, stories of negativity all wrapped up around my mom and her wrong doings to me, my dad and my siblings. Once, while retelling a story to a friend, I caught a glimpse of myself and what the negativity was doing to my body. I felt all wound up and full of anger and sadness at the same time…so I woke up in the midst of it and asked myself: “why am I remembering my mom in that way and doing this to myself?” I decided I needed to write my mom a letter to forgive her. Her response wasn’t what my ego wanted, instead it was only very telling of her oblivion what I felt over the years, or any wrong doing on her part. So I decided to let it go and to call my mom once a week, for a year. It changed our relationship and I began getting to know my mom.
I suppose that is why it was so painful to think of losing her, I felt like I was just starting to get to know her…outside of my own childhood stories.
I was persistent in my requests to visit, and she obliged with stubbornness. Finally I asked, “So if I show up on your doorstep with some bags for a visit…you’ll actually send me away?”
She responded with, “No, I’d love to see you.”
“Good, I’ll be there next week!” And I was off to Michigan for a visit, in the grey days of February, 2008.
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