Personal Narrative: My Mother's Cancer

Even More Radical Essay My mother never lost her hair. I never spent nights stroking her back as she got sick in the toilet, or watched as she grew pale and lost weight. Yet, I will also never get to see her triumph over cancer, never get to celebrate five cancer-free years and finally start to hope that she is finally better. The word ‘remission’ isn’t in my family’s vocabulary. Instead, there is only the knowledge that one day my mother will cease to be with us, and that the reason is because of the insidious, vile, reprehensible cancer that quietly crept from her breasts to her bones. In August of 2013, my mother was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer, and it marked the moment I became an adult. The kitchen was dark and quiet, the skies outside holding barely a hint of the light that would soon blossom into a riotous mix of colors. The only light in the house was my own, as I finished getting ready for the morning. I opened my door, and my morning routine began. First, wake up my mother and ensure she wouldn’t be falling back asleep after
I’m calmer, more responsible, and more independent. I’ve taken control of my life into my own hands, and become intrinsically motivated to do better, work harder, and stop blaming other people for my own shortcomings. I started waking up on my own and taking responsibility for the household in the morning. I took it upon myself to work through my crippling social anxiety, working through it even though at the beginning every word that fell through my lips was a carefully crafted disaster. In the grand scheme of things, these events may seem insignificant, but in my life they make all the difference. All of this change started because of my mom’s diagnosis, and while it’s certainly not an ideal situation it hasn’t stopped me from growing and, as cliche as it sounds, living as if there were no