The Season and MY Reason for Pink

My mother told me she had been diagnosed with breast cancer two weeks before my 29th birthday, and I remember my first thought was terror at becoming an orphan before even hitting 30 - having lost my dad 5 years prior. Secondly came denial. It was so powerful that the news never fully registered until after she came out of her first surgery.

I saw how she struggled with the slightest of tasks after eventually enduring two separate mastectomies, and how slow the healing process was for each. Later, I saw how the painful effects of chemo sapped her strength. This woman who I saw as a rock throughout my life suddenly became very weak, and it was frightening.

At times I couldn’t even react. It seemed that I was watching everything unfold as if it were a movie and not really our lives. She made it easy for my brothers and I to feel like everything was okay, and I suppose we let her.

The most impressive thing about watching her through it all though, was how she kept her sense of humor. A perfect example of that occurred the year after she was diagnosed, on a trip to Deadwood, SD that my family takes annually for a little gambling (each October ironically enough). I distinctly remember how excited my mom was to go that year.

She had lost all her hair by then, so she was in the habit of wearing a bandanna or hat. At one point she and I and my Aunt Patti all went to the bathroom, and my mom asked Patti for a comb. So here Patti was, digging with intense focus and determination through her purse, and she was just beside herself because she couldn’t find one. My mom gently touched her arm and finally said with a smirk,

“I don’t have any hair ya dumbshit, what do I need a comb for?”

Patti just stared at her blankly for a second before the realization of the joke set in, and we all had a good laugh. I’ll always remember that as a defining moment, and looking back I’m sure my mother’s strength and humor are responsible for turning her into a survivor.

Four years later (in June of 06), Gramma Pam welcomed her 2nd grandchild (Shiloh) into her life - and I am thankful. So, even though I’m not a fan of pink, I’ve happily gone Pink for October.

Do you have a story to tell? Share it on your blog, link up to this entry, and I’ll reciprocate. You can also make an obvious statement by going pink. Over 1500 sites participated last year! If you’d like to make a donation for the Pink Adaptations theme, all proceeds collected during the month of October will be passed on to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Learn more about the fight against breast cancer, ideas for spreading awareness, and the P4O Initiative at pinkforoctober.org.

p.s. I love you mom.

Tags: family | themes