October

Every October I have one thing that occupies my mind consistently. No, it’s not candy corn. Womp, womp, it’s breast cancer.

The entire month is dedicated to it and there are reminders everywhere. The pink to-go lid on the coffee that I ordered, the pink ice-skating rink at the mall, the pink ribbon on a strangers jacket. It’s impossible for me to escape it, so I thought I’d write about it.

I never thought about this month before my mom was diagnosed. It had no meaning to me. I had no experience with it or emotional tether to it. Now that she is gone it comes into my mind often during this time of year. I think my experience was generally different then a lot of other children who are present during a parents cancer journey. My mom had a lump removed from her right breast, but she didn’t want any other treatment. So, my experience of her sickness was not of fighting the disease at all and her symptoms of illness were solely caused by the cancer killing her. But she embraced it, and tragically that meant that to support her I also had to embrace it.

My mom had an attitude about cancer that I have never seen anyone else have before. She accepted it, lived alongside it, and thanked God for it. While everyone else screamed “F@&k Cancer!” she said, “No, no. Thank God for cancer”. She knew in every season, in every hardship, in every mystery to be thankful. She told me, “Thank God for cancer because it will be used to bring glory to Him.” No matter her suffering she knew that life was about so much more. It makes people mad when you treat cancer like this, they don’t understand the hope and acceptance behind this kind of response. But as a christian she knew that this was the only attitude that she should have.

However, two things can be true at the same time. My mom handled cancer with more grace then anyone I have ever seen, but quite frankly we were deluded. We had the typical “prosperity gospel” mindset. “She loves Jesus, so he will deliver her from this!” Through this mindset we marched her straight towards her death.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have pushed her to do treatment. She was so scared of the complications and side effects of treatment, but she never thought alternatively about what death would be like. Her intellect was so important to her and as an author who spent hours writing everyday she was scared to get ‘chemo brain’ from the chemotherapy and lose it. She was scared to lose her hair from the radiation. She was scared to get a mastectomy and lose her breasts. She said they were part of her femininity and that she wanted to keep them so that she could comfort her grandchildren and be a soft place for them someday. We were all so scared of the cancer and of what treatment would mean that we did nothing. We made the decisions that we made and there is no changing them now, but I want to acknowledge that they were misguided and uneducated.

I don’t say any of this to say that she shouldn’t have died or that she wouldn’t have died had we done things differently. Quite honestly that is something I don’t want to think too deeply about. Everyone has their time to leave this life and due to a combination of breast cancer and inaction in treating the disease, it was her time to go. I do believe that action and prayer can change outcomes, but at the end of the day we all die. We will all die. Mortality is a hard pill to swallow, even when you’re staring death in the face.

The month of October is a time of contemplation for me. I often find myself thinking for long periods of time about breast cancer and how it’s affected my life. I think about what it was like to watch my mom fade away. I think about my experiences caring for her as the cancer invaded her lungs and spine. I think about changing her bandages everyday and seeing her entire right breast be eaten away. I remember holding her in her final days as she wept like a child because she realized that this was indeed the end. I will never forget what breast cancer took from me and if I ever have it I will fight like hell. But I pray to God that I never utter the words “f@&k cancer”. Those words do not breathe life and they do not spread hope. Too many people have no hope in this life or the next.

In honor of breast cancer awareness month, please do a monthly self exam, get a mammogram sooner rather then later, and always advocate for your health if you feel that something is wrong.

Love,

Z