I wish I knew, sometimes I think I am this sixty-eight year old hip grandmother of three children and six grands who have been there...and Lord have I been there and would never go back to anytime in my life.
I remember a very lonely childhood, four older siblings, a hard working mother, and a lazy father. He did not like to work, was unable to keep any job for long, and was a drinking man. All that made my mother's job harder, and kept her upset all of the time. That did not leave a soft, warm and loving time for us children.
So, my older brother became my answer to and for everything. He reached down to me, and I reached up. Things were well for a while in my small and safe world.
Let me ask a question, can the sun shine too bright? I think so because it was that way on this day in May 1948 when my safe world was shattered into a millions pieces, never to be put back together again. The airplane came out of the sky to crash into my house, killed two of my brothers, altered my mother’s heart and soul, reduced my father into even less of a husband and father.
So, for the next eleven years there are fading memories of a teenage life. It came and went without fanfare just more pain. At eighteen, I became a mother, and then a wife; yes, in that order. He was a good man, but was not able to detach himself from his mother in order to shape his own life. There goes my young adult life. It was filled with too much hard work. Too many headaches, non-existing help. Talking about being alone? Divorced at the young age of 31.
I failed to mention that during those eleven years I lost my two remaining brothers -- remember my lifeline? He was lost to me at the age of 15 in a car crash (again it was a bright shining day). Seven years later another bright sun shining day in January (the first Super Bowl Sunday) my dear brother (who’d reached down to me) was called to heaven.
Ok, enough is enough! Time to change my life, so I thought. However, God’s idea of change was very different from mine, because at the age of thirty-six, breast cancer reared its ugly head. The sun was really shining that day that I drove myself to the doctor’s office to find out this bad news alone.
Thirty years later, moving along dealing with several medical problems, I still don't see the dark clouds, or hear the thunder, see the lighting flashing. I only see the bright sunshine and look forward to each day that I can look up, give thanks, and move on.
Who am I?
I know I am a daughter, a sister, a mother, a grandmother, and a friend.
Recently, I came across pictures I took of my breasts in the mirror with my cell phone before my double mastectomy a few months ago. As I accidentally came across those images, I remembered that when I took them I thought I would be upset the first time I saw them after the surgery. I wasn't.
Ever since the surgery, I see my breasts quite often in my mind's eye. Often they're just in the back of my mind but sometimes I think about them. When I am remembering my hands on my breasts, touching them protectively as I did before the surgery, it almost feels as if I am really touching them.
It surprised me at first that I didn't find it difficult to see the images of my breasts looking back at me from my cell phone. But then I realized that I will remember my breasts forever – they're with me always, no pictures necessary. They live in my memory. Their absence, coupled with a ghost-like reminiscence, is starting to become a part of who I am.
After a mastectomy, there is some numbness. If my arm brushes lightly across my chest, it can feel as if it's not my body I'm brushing into. That bothers me. But as significant as the numbness is, so also is my gratitude – I don't have cancer in my body anymore. I feel a huge relief about that. And then, inevitably, sadness follows. It's heavy, sweet and wistful, like for an old lover. You know the kind – the one you couldn't be with, the one you just had to let get away.
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