All Because of Mom
By Cathy Howard
Only my sisters understand. They are the only other human beings on this earth who, like me, become mind-numbingly paralyzed once a year.
At mammogram time.
My husband, John, doesn’t get it. The week before my mammogram, I become increasingly quiet. I’m wondering about the woman he’ll take up with after I die of breast cancer. Oblivious to my suffering, he glares at the TV screen to spar with Bill O’Reilly.
One day, shortly before my yearly mammogram, the two of us walked companionably around the duck pond in the peaceful shadows of late afternoon.
“I want my brother Tom to give my eulogy,” I suddenly blurted. He stared at me.
“Just try to remember,” I choked with emotion. He shook his head in bewilderment.
But my five sisters understand completely. Four of us have endured breast biopsies, and all of us have meticulously planned our funerals. We have pondered as well which women would fill in admirably as new wives and mothers to our husbands and children. They should be women who are wonderful and kind. But not TOO wonderful and kind. And not too cute. In fact, not cute at all.
In addition, my sisters and I have made a pact. It is absolutely understood that, if one of us is lying in an irreversible coma, it will be the responsibility of the others to sneak into our hospital room to discreetly remove any embarrassing facial hair.
We’ve pretty much got all our bases covered.
But only my sisters understand.
And that’s because of Mom.
We were just a young family when Mom discovered a lump in her breast. She was 45 years old and beautiful and funny. It was 1976, and the idea that anything like cancer could touch our big happy family was unthinkable.
But three weeks later, Mom had an operation to biopsy the lump and woke up without a breast. That’s the way it was done in 1976. The cancer had already spread, and Mom started radiation treatments immediately. There was no suggestion of chemotherapy at the time. But when it became clear that Mom’s cancer had spread to her spine, the doctors removed her ovaries in a last-ditch attempt to slow its deadly progress. By that time, however, tiny tumors were already growing on her skull, pressing against her eyeball and robbing her of her vision.
She died in 1979 at the age of 48.
Those three years were filled with heartbreak. My youngest brother, Jeff, was only 4 years old when Mom was diagnosed. During one of Mom’s stays in the hospital, I remember watching him crawl into my parents’ bed early one morning to clutch Mom’s pillow.
“Mommy,” he sighed sleepily.
My sisters Deb and Mary, who were only teenagers, were suddenly thrust into the roles of cook and housekeeper. And when my dad, bone weary from dealing with my mother’s illness and trying to care for 10 kids, would walk through the door every night after work, my sisters tried to protect him.
“Don’t tell him Mom cried today,” they’d warn my other siblings.
But mostly I remember the end. When Mom died, my little brothers and sisters could hardly bear it. Huddled closely around my dad, the 10 of us shuffled up to her casket at the funeral home to view her body for the first time. The four little ones suddenly collapsed onto Dad’s lap, sobbing and clinging to him. I will never forget how he comforted them as tears streamed down his own face.
Cancer changed our family forever. It even broke us for just a little while. But ultimately, we learned to depend on each other. Even in our adult lives, my brothers and sisters and I are each other’s best friends.
There have been those times when I missed Mom so much that it was a physical ache my wedding day, when I was pregnant with our first baby, when Dad died. I was at my son’s basketball game some years ago sitting behind a woman about my age who leaned over and whispered to her mother. They laughed and embraced, and I felt such a stab of longing. But then I remember my family my husband, John, my sons, my stepmom, my siblings, my in-laws. The whole dysfunctional clan. Cancer has taught me that what my dad always said is true: Family is everything.
And even though my sisters and I suffer temporary insanity every year when it’s time for our mammograms, we know how lucky we are.
There were no mammograms in 1976 no stereotactic biopsies, no chemotherapy, no drugs like tamoxifen to stop a deadly, aggressive cancer. It’s because of Mom that my sisters and I remain ever vigilant, ready to stop the enemy.
Cancer taught us something else. It couldn’t take Mom away. Not really. I see her in my sisters. In Deb’s soothing voice. In Mary’s expressive brown eyes. In Terri’s quirky humor. In Caroline’s adventurous spirit. And sometimes, when we all gather together, along with our lovely and tolerant stepmother, Kris, who is more sister than parent, the stories we share from those distant, happy days of our youth render us helpless. We laugh so hard, it hurts. And in the middle of our hoots and cackling, I swear I hear the ghost of a familiar and much loved giggle.
Cancer does not have the power to take our loved ones away. We just have to find them. I find Mom again every day: in precious photos, in the winter coat she once wore, in the way a small niece tilts her head just so
I find her in my brothers and sisters. They fill the aching void in my heart and show me what I think I’ve always known love is more powerful than anything.
Even cancer.
UPDATE MARCH 1, 2009:
Her mother died of breast cancer in 1978 at age 48. She wrote that she and her sisters each get temporarily insane around the time of their annual mammograms.
“Everybody has a story. It was a great honor to share my own and so very humbling to read the tales of faith and courage from other survivors. What wonderful people! Cancer feels so lonely, but this inspiring series reassured me that none of us is really alone.”
Tags: Cathy Howard
