Author's note: You'll forgive me, dear Claremont Conservative reader, but I have something I have to get off my chest. You'll also have to pardon me if it is sentimental -- which is to say, it lavishes too many emotions on the topic -- but I can't help myself.
January 23rd, 1996 is a special day for my family. Today is its fifteenth anniversary. I don't like talking about it, but I must, for now, about to go off into the world to make my mark, I realize that I have already been marked by it. Indeed, it looms over every day of my life and gives it texture and meaning in a world without either.
Today, dear reader, is the fifteenth anniversary of my mother's breast cancer diagnosis. Though that cancer took a breast and the drugs that saved her aged her beyond her years, she is still as lovely as ever, though it is a different sort of lovely than before. Not content to wait until her hair fell off, she shaved it all off, staring purposefully I imagine into the mirror as the young Vietnamese barbress brought out the clippers and buzzed away. It was the last we saw of her long red hair, replaced as it was by an off-red, near-beige once it returned.
Her wig was also an impostor for synthetic wig manufacturers will never get the red head hue just right. On hot days, my mother would take off the wig entirely and when she was feeling better, play with her kids. One day, a boy asked me, in her presence, if she was my brother. I could tell it stung her, but she would never cry in front of us. Later, together, we would read Roald Dahl's The Witches, only to discover that the witches were bald, too. It seemed to follow us wherever we went, even into fiction.
I do not like to use the phrase "battling" cancer as my family didn't battle cancer, but endured it and endures it still, for its specter stalks us. Every family joy is always juxtaposed against it; every tragedy is compared against it to check. Still, perhaps life itself is an endurance test, though we hope we'll have more to celebrate than to mourn. And in that we've been lucky.
When my mother told me, I was but eight years old. My father told me that, "much was to be expected of me" and -- this I shall never forget -- actually apologized that I had transcended the ranks of children to the nebulous category of child-adult.
It's been said that that's the moment I became a conservative for I had much I wanted to conserve and I felt contempt for all of those people, who despite their well-wishes, would lie to me about how my mother was doing. However much you say something like -- "Oh, she'll be fine," "Mustn't worry," etc., etc., -- it all seems hollow when you are in the thick of it. Sometimes things really aren't fine. My mother taught me that defiance, not well-wishing, is how to triumph. (Defiance, of course, sometimes goes in different directions. She, bless her heart, is a woman of the far left, while I, obviously, am not.)
Along the way through her first bout with cancer, she had help from a few of our friends. Though my family had wanted to keep it a secret, no secret that large keeps for long. Soon families from all across town were arriving with potluck dinners for my siblings and me. Most of them were total strangers to us, but in times of tragedy, small towns have a way of producing greatness of soul. Many of these magnanimous strangers are still unknown to me, though I would love to thank them. Quite a few came from a church, St. Michael's, of which my family was not a member. Still they came. We ate very well and perhaps gained a few pounds too many, and, in the evenings, while she was resting upstairs, I would go and read to her or just try and keep her company. Those days were some of the saddest, but best, days of my life.
I don't believe in God anymore, though I want to, but in those days I dutifully went to church as many Sundays as I could. I even served on my church's vestry and taught Sunday school when my mother got sick again -- all to thank them for what they did. Sam Rodman, the minister who once coordinated that effort, has recently stepped down from our church. As I told the church in my farewell sermon, I left for the City of Angels, knowing full well that there were very real ones sitting in the pews and Sam Rodman was their leader.
Though doctors told her that after five years in remission she wouldn't get it again, she did. I was in high school at the time, so I was better able to help the family, but it was a powerful blow. In solidarity with her this time, I shaved my head, as I had promised. We went to the barbershop together and I sat next to her, telling the barber that, "I'll what she was having." Only I didn't. My hair grew back quickly; hers didn't.
In the span of a year, Molly, my high school crush and friend, lost her father on Christmas morning from cancer and in the springtime, Jillian, my friend and Molly's best friend, succumbed to a life long battle with a rare cancer. She was sixteen. I don't know why my family was spared, but I think of it often.
My mom is a powerful woman, who, after getting cancer the first time, re-invented herself and became what she had always wanted -- a high school teacher. My dad, a few years ago, joined her. It is in that profession that they'll spend their final days, which I think will be a fitting epitaph for them as they always stressed education, especially mine, often purchased with a lot of hard, hard work. Even when my mom had cancer, she took few days off and even taught summer school just so we would have enough to pay for my schooling.
These past few years have been difficult to be sure. Despite lots of financial aid and working several jobs, it has often been tough to pay tuition. But my parents help as best as they can, often going without so that their kids can have more. Their roof, I've now learned, is leaky but they kept it well-patched with love. Half the house lacks heat -- the part I used to live in -- but I'm told they keep each other mighty warm. The bathrooms are in disrepair, the door to the one working one is broken, the kitchen sink leaks, and I see these all for what they are -- the daily comforts my parents have forgone so that each of their children might have better.
Since her diagnosis, my mother's been active and the picture of health. She walks every day and has even entered a few 60-mile breast cancer walks. She was interviewed by The Boston Globe in 2000 at the end of one of those walks. "I'm walking," she said, "so that my daughter will never have to go through what I and so many others have gone through."
This January 23 I won't be able to see my mother as I am now, for the duration, West-coast based, but as much love as I can send, I'm sending her way. Oh, and I'm sending something else her way, too.
We had previously thought that she and my Dad couldn't afford to come out to see commencement. Well, I have been saving up, Mom and I'll book your ticket as soon as you want to come.
January 23rd, 1996 is a special day for my family. Today is its fifteenth anniversary. I don't like talking about it, but I must, for now, about to go off into the world to make my mark, I realize that I have already been marked by it. Indeed, it looms over every day of my life and gives it texture and meaning in a world without either.
Today, dear reader, is the fifteenth anniversary of my mother's breast cancer diagnosis. Though that cancer took a breast and the drugs that saved her aged her beyond her years, she is still as lovely as ever, though it is a different sort of lovely than before. Not content to wait until her hair fell off, she shaved it all off, staring purposefully I imagine into the mirror as the young Vietnamese barbress brought out the clippers and buzzed away. It was the last we saw of her long red hair, replaced as it was by an off-red, near-beige once it returned.
Her wig was also an impostor for synthetic wig manufacturers will never get the red head hue just right. On hot days, my mother would take off the wig entirely and when she was feeling better, play with her kids. One day, a boy asked me, in her presence, if she was my brother. I could tell it stung her, but she would never cry in front of us. Later, together, we would read Roald Dahl's The Witches, only to discover that the witches were bald, too. It seemed to follow us wherever we went, even into fiction.
I do not like to use the phrase "battling" cancer as my family didn't battle cancer, but endured it and endures it still, for its specter stalks us. Every family joy is always juxtaposed against it; every tragedy is compared against it to check. Still, perhaps life itself is an endurance test, though we hope we'll have more to celebrate than to mourn. And in that we've been lucky.
When my mother told me, I was but eight years old. My father told me that, "much was to be expected of me" and -- this I shall never forget -- actually apologized that I had transcended the ranks of children to the nebulous category of child-adult.
It's been said that that's the moment I became a conservative for I had much I wanted to conserve and I felt contempt for all of those people, who despite their well-wishes, would lie to me about how my mother was doing. However much you say something like -- "Oh, she'll be fine," "Mustn't worry," etc., etc., -- it all seems hollow when you are in the thick of it. Sometimes things really aren't fine. My mother taught me that defiance, not well-wishing, is how to triumph. (Defiance, of course, sometimes goes in different directions. She, bless her heart, is a woman of the far left, while I, obviously, am not.)
Along the way through her first bout with cancer, she had help from a few of our friends. Though my family had wanted to keep it a secret, no secret that large keeps for long. Soon families from all across town were arriving with potluck dinners for my siblings and me. Most of them were total strangers to us, but in times of tragedy, small towns have a way of producing greatness of soul. Many of these magnanimous strangers are still unknown to me, though I would love to thank them. Quite a few came from a church, St. Michael's, of which my family was not a member. Still they came. We ate very well and perhaps gained a few pounds too many, and, in the evenings, while she was resting upstairs, I would go and read to her or just try and keep her company. Those days were some of the saddest, but best, days of my life.
I don't believe in God anymore, though I want to, but in those days I dutifully went to church as many Sundays as I could. I even served on my church's vestry and taught Sunday school when my mother got sick again -- all to thank them for what they did. Sam Rodman, the minister who once coordinated that effort, has recently stepped down from our church. As I told the church in my farewell sermon, I left for the City of Angels, knowing full well that there were very real ones sitting in the pews and Sam Rodman was their leader.
Though doctors told her that after five years in remission she wouldn't get it again, she did. I was in high school at the time, so I was better able to help the family, but it was a powerful blow. In solidarity with her this time, I shaved my head, as I had promised. We went to the barbershop together and I sat next to her, telling the barber that, "I'll what she was having." Only I didn't. My hair grew back quickly; hers didn't.
In the span of a year, Molly, my high school crush and friend, lost her father on Christmas morning from cancer and in the springtime, Jillian, my friend and Molly's best friend, succumbed to a life long battle with a rare cancer. She was sixteen. I don't know why my family was spared, but I think of it often.
My mom is a powerful woman, who, after getting cancer the first time, re-invented herself and became what she had always wanted -- a high school teacher. My dad, a few years ago, joined her. It is in that profession that they'll spend their final days, which I think will be a fitting epitaph for them as they always stressed education, especially mine, often purchased with a lot of hard, hard work. Even when my mom had cancer, she took few days off and even taught summer school just so we would have enough to pay for my schooling.
These past few years have been difficult to be sure. Despite lots of financial aid and working several jobs, it has often been tough to pay tuition. But my parents help as best as they can, often going without so that their kids can have more. Their roof, I've now learned, is leaky but they kept it well-patched with love. Half the house lacks heat -- the part I used to live in -- but I'm told they keep each other mighty warm. The bathrooms are in disrepair, the door to the one working one is broken, the kitchen sink leaks, and I see these all for what they are -- the daily comforts my parents have forgone so that each of their children might have better.
Since her diagnosis, my mother's been active and the picture of health. She walks every day and has even entered a few 60-mile breast cancer walks. She was interviewed by The Boston Globe in 2000 at the end of one of those walks. "I'm walking," she said, "so that my daughter will never have to go through what I and so many others have gone through."
This January 23 I won't be able to see my mother as I am now, for the duration, West-coast based, but as much love as I can send, I'm sending her way. Oh, and I'm sending something else her way, too.
We had previously thought that she and my Dad couldn't afford to come out to see commencement. Well, I have been saving up, Mom and I'll book your ticket as soon as you want to come.
