Over the last 5 years, the holidays have been
difficult. My mother’s birthday falls a
few days after Christmas, and I am reminded each year that she is no longer
with us. Absent from the body but
present with the Lord. But knowing this truth, it doesn’t get easier.
The anniversary of her passing comes quickly after Christmas
and her birthday. This year, like every year, I celebrate her life by doing
what she loved on her birthday. I went
to a great restaurant and ate a great meal with a good friend. I said a toast
to honor her for the amazing job she did in raising me and my two brothers
alone. In spite of all the hardships she faced in her very difficult life, she
never stopped pouring out love to those around her. She wasn’t perfect, but
most people comment on how sweet she was.
I like to think that in this sense, I take after my mother.
Additionally, after a few years of hardship in my own life
and a particularly difficult end to 2017, I was very ready for a fresh start. My spirits were high and I entered 2018 with a
joyful heart, a smile and some dancing, of course.
A few days later a late evening shower brought a new dose of
reality.
I’ve been taking charge of my health over the last few
months, including a new diet and exercise regime I started in October. I’ve lost 21lbs of fat and I am glad. Had I not, I wouldn’t have been able to feel
the lump in my breast.
In that moment, the memories of 7 years of watching my
mother fight Stage 4 Inflammatory Breast Cancer flooded back. It developed quickly and spread aggressively,
into her lymph nodes and ultimately as a brain tumor. My mother never drank, she’d never done drugs,
she ate healthy, she worked hard, and stayed sweet.
In those 7 years, I watched her go through
numerous chemo therapies, grow weaker. She continued to work at her job in a shelter
for women who were victims of domestic abuse, up to 6 months before she died.
She was a tough cookie.
I thought on all these things as I stood in my bathroom, wrapped
in a towel, my hair dripping cold water down my back. I got dressed for bed and tried to sleep it
off. I didn’t want to think about it. The next morning I was on the phone with
my doctor making an emergency appointment.
For years, as my mother fought breast cancer, I would ask my
doctor about getting an early mammogram.
I was told that they were not done until the age of 40. I would have to wait 10 more years under this
rule. At one point, as I did a self-exam,
I felt something strange and asked my doctor to check it. I was told it was probably a fibroid and
nothing to worry about.
Probably.
Nothing to worry about.
No mammogram.
Unbelievable.
Didn’t they understand that I was watching someone I love
die of something that I DID worry about.
My days were consumed with keeping track of doctor appointments, speaking
with my mother’s case worker, surgeries, chemo therapies, and flying back to New
York as often as possible to cook my mother healthy foods that she could store
in her freezer in the off chance that she would actually try to eat that day. In addition to the fact that I was on my knees
everyday praying that my mother would accept Christ before she breathed her
last breath.
Nothing to worry about is a poor consolatory statement for
people who are living this reality.
I tried to remain calm.
The day of my doctor’s appointment, I
went to His word.
Matthew
6:25-34 New Life Version (NLV)
Jesus Teaches about Cares
of Life
25 “I tell you this: Do not
worry about your life. Do not worry about what you are going to eat and drink.
Do not worry about what you are going to wear. Is not life more important than
food? Is not the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds in the
sky. They do not plant seeds. They do not gather grain. They do not put grain
into a building to keep. Yet your Father in heaven feeds them! Are you not more
important than the birds? 27 Which of you can make
himself a little taller by worrying? 28 Why should you worry about
clothes? Think how the flowers grow. They do not work or make cloth. 29 But I tell you that
Solomon in all his greatness was not dressed as well as one of these
flowers. 30 God clothes the grass of the field. It lives today and is burned
in the stove tomorrow. How much more will He give you clothes? You have so
little faith! 31 Do not worry. Do not keep saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or, ‘What
will we drink?’ or, ‘What will we wear?’ 32 The people who do not know
God are looking for all these things. Your Father in heaven knows you need all
these things. 33 First of all, look for the holy nation of God. Be right with Him.
All these other things will be given to you also. 34 Do not worry about
tomorrow. Tomorrow will have its own worries. The troubles we have in a day are
enough for one day.
I wasn’t crazy.
There is, in fact a lump.
I was scheduled for the mammogram I had been requesting for the last 8 years.
There is, in fact a lump.
I was scheduled for the mammogram I had been requesting for the last 8 years.
So on the 5th anniversary of my mother’s death
from breast cancer, I was standing in the mammography room getting my first
mammogram. I tried not to cry as the
gravity of this experience washed over me. I tried not to cry as I stood there
enduring something quite physically painful, but in no way as painful as the
feelings I was experiencing.
Afterward, I stared at the screen looking at the white mass
that had been illuminated from the darkness and brought into my new reality. I’d
seen numerous films in dealing with my mother’s cancer that I knew that was I
was seeing was not normal. Next I lay there as I was given an ultrasound to see
the density.
It was at this moment that I wished I didn’t know the things
I know, like how to read mammography and ultrasounds.
I was already preparing myself for what is coming the
future.
Once the results were in, I heard what I was expecting.
Most likely a Fibroadenoma.
Most likely a benign tumor.
Most you'll need a biopsy, possibly surgery.
Most. Likely.
Possibly.
I cried after I got off the phone with the doctor. I don’t
want a biopsy. I don’t want surgery. In my late 20’s I had finally gotten
comfortable with my body and my boobs! I don’t want a scar for something to remember
this experience by.
A good friend reminded me, “You serve Someone much greater.”
This I know, and yet I worry.
I know it and still I cry.
I praise Him.
I get in His word.
I get in His word.
I pray.
I breathe.
I worship.
I pour it out.
I pour it out.
In His presence my soul is satisfied.
Every time.
I trust Him to work all things out for my good.
I remind myself that if it’s not good yet, He’s not done.
I remind myself that in every season, I am loved by the one who created me.
He is my defender, and the one who calms the storm.
He is my Jehovah Rapha, my God who heals.
Romans
8:28 Amplified Bible (AMP)
28 And we
know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes
all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to
those who are called according to His plan and purpose.
I come before You, Just as I am
I lay me at Your Feet
I bring before You, All that I have
I lay it at Your Feet
Refrain:
You are worthy, worthy, worthy Lord
You are worthy worthy worthy so –
Praise like oil
For You I pour it out
For You I pour it out
I pour, I pour it out for You
I pour this perfume, not to impress
the people standing around
I pour this perfume,’cause of your worthiness
as I behold you now
(Refrain)
Bridge:
It’s foolishness I know
But your foolishness is wiser than my wisest
Wiser, wiser (Repeat)
(Refrain)
