She has cancer. It feels weird to write that down, but worse to say it out loud. She hid it from her children for nearly a month. It was in the middle of May in 2013 and it was the last of my sophomore year. The morning was hot and waking up at noon made me feel worse. There was a hard pounding in my head as if someone was gripping it and shaking it back and forth. I was unbalanced and my body was ready to topple down like an almost dead tree. I headed to the kitchen for breakfast and to my surprise, my mother wasn’t at work. She was sitting at our small dining table with my grandmother across from her. They both had a full cup of coffee, but there was no steam. I went ahead and made myself a bowl of cereal. The crackling from my bowl was soft.
…show more content…
Loud voices were being thrown at each other. I stopped talking and my grandmother asked “Do you even know what she has?”
I knew what she had and responded “She has MS, you don’t need to keep telling me that.” I thought I knew what it was but I only knew half of it. “She has breast cancer.” When the word “cancer” came out of her mouth, I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want her to know that I
2
didn’t know and quickly answered with an “I know.” Breast cancer, it rang in my head over and over, along with the crackling of my cereal. The two only things I could hear. I didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t very educated on the topic of cancer, specifically breast cancer. Weeks passed and since then, no one answered the phone. No one answered our relative’s calls. No one answered because no one called. Her first surgery to remove a small tumor from her right breast was planned on July 29th, 2014. It was her birthday. I was oblivious to the whole cancer thing still and no one talked about it. No one wanted to.
On July 30th, I found out that cancer had a smell. Since the rest of the world knew about the cancer that had nestled in my mother’s body, a plethora of flowers began to …show more content…
My head was hurting and it felt like the same kind that I had when I was first told she had cancer. I felt selfish.
Opening the freezer was different now. There weren’t just frozen pizzas or ice cube trays, there was a pink pack in the shape of a circle sitting in the door. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew it was my mothers. Whenever I saw it, I saw cancer. Since no one spoke about it, no one questioned her about still working her full time job. Coming home and being engulfed in the smell of cancer made me want vomit. Our house was the cancer house in the neighborhood. The bills were still being paid and foods in unfamiliar containers sat in the fridge. The family was helping, but no one said the word cancer around us or in the house.
Her remission came months later, but I still blamed myself of this disgusting illness.
I started researching breast cancer and had later found out that it was hereditary. The
4
grandmother on my mother’s side had died from it before I got the chance to meet her.
Every woman had died from it on her side. I could see myself in the future sitting in a
Loud voices were being thrown at each other. I stopped talking and my grandmother asked “Do you even know what she has?”
I knew what she had and responded “She has MS, you don’t need to keep telling me that.” I thought I knew what it was but I only knew half of it. “She has breast cancer.” When the word “cancer” came out of her mouth, I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want her to know that I
2
didn’t know and quickly answered with an “I know.” Breast cancer, it rang in my head over and over, along with the crackling of my cereal. The two only things I could hear. I didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t very educated on the topic of cancer, specifically breast cancer. Weeks passed and since then, no one answered the phone. No one answered our relative’s calls. No one answered because no one called. Her first surgery to remove a small tumor from her right breast was planned on July 29th, 2014. It was her birthday. I was oblivious to the whole cancer thing still and no one talked about it. No one wanted to.
On July 30th, I found out that cancer had a smell. Since the rest of the world knew about the cancer that had nestled in my mother’s body, a plethora of flowers began to …show more content…
My head was hurting and it felt like the same kind that I had when I was first told she had cancer. I felt selfish.
Opening the freezer was different now. There weren’t just frozen pizzas or ice cube trays, there was a pink pack in the shape of a circle sitting in the door. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew it was my mothers. Whenever I saw it, I saw cancer. Since no one spoke about it, no one questioned her about still working her full time job. Coming home and being engulfed in the smell of cancer made me want vomit. Our house was the cancer house in the neighborhood. The bills were still being paid and foods in unfamiliar containers sat in the fridge. The family was helping, but no one said the word cancer around us or in the house.
Her remission came months later, but I still blamed myself of this disgusting illness.
I started researching breast cancer and had later found out that it was hereditary. The
4
grandmother on my mother’s side had died from it before I got the chance to meet her.
Every woman had died from it on her side. I could see myself in the future sitting in a