Stand Up To Cancer

For the past 14 years I've felt guilty. Extremely guilty. And I need to get it off my chest. So here's my confession:

I cannot--for the life of me--remember what my mother said to me when she broke the news that she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Most normal people can remember this. They remember being in shock, crying, long embraces. Me? Nothing.

Granted, I was in the 4th grade (do the math, I'm now 23) and I had just come home from school. I probably had some "big" news to share (of the multiplication tables or recess variety) and I couldn't wait for my parents to get their "little" talk over with so that I could go on and on about 4th grade things.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed (I can remember that much) and my feet didn't touch the ground. My dad was peering in from the doorway and my mom, well, she was right there in front of me.

Her words are like a blur, and as an adult who adores life's little details, I'm still trying to cope with my faulty memory.

Perhaps as a vibrant nine-year-old, the option of losing my mother didn't exist. She was a super-human. She was invincible. She was my very own superhero.

On top of my overactive imagination, there's a good chance that I didn't really understand what breast cancer could do to a woman--how it could steal her breast, her hair, her immunity, her confidence, her life.

Or maybe it was just a hunch that this woman I called Mom was pretty damn strong.

I think it was the latter.

But now that I think about it, I'm glad that I can't remember the "before." I do, however, remember the "after."

I remember her coming home from the hospital, bandaged and reconstructed. I remember making her do her exercises to regain her strength. I remember her graying hair as the chemotherapy set in. I remember forcing her to return the wigs she bought "just in case." That wasn't how I wanted to see my Mom. I didn't care if her hair was falling out. I wanted no cover-ups or lies. Just her, cancer free.

This year, I'm going to forgive myself for not remembering her words that fateful 4th-grade day. Instead, I'm going to focus on the now. My Mom is alive.

-Amanda Rossie