On the occasion of his 80th birthday

Today is my father's 80th birthday. This is inconceivable to me, as it is to many of us who are finding that our fathers' ages have become numbers which sound inappropriately like the last few lessons of our times tables, and generally associated more with the elderly and infirmed than with our lifelong protectors. Wait - we …

Eleventh hour, 2016

There's no getting around it now. I'm completely out of time. I weigh the same as when the year began; I have lost zero pounds. In not-unrelated news, I have also not gone to the gym more often. I have not read more books than the year before, and I have only started to write …

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Battle language used to describe cancer is not something that resonates with everyone, and I get that. But today's WordPress Daily Prompt: Pillage surprised me by taking me back to those days as a scared girl with a shaved head, and the long journey back. Shout out to all of you cancer warriors  - and non-warriors - out there. She is a soldier, shorn-ready for …

More than enough

Sisters, many of us are all running around like crazy people today. It is very nearly Christmas and it is always, always the sisters who are making the world go around this time of year. I have one word I'm trying to keep in my head today - maybe you have problems with it, too? …

The older mom

I am not sure exactly when it happened. But I have, for sure, become an Older Mom. I know this because I can recognize in myself the Older Moms from my early days on the job. They were, as I am now, 40- or 50-something, with children whose grown-up-sounding ages, when they mentioned them to …

In defense of the faith

She strides into the clinic, smiling, and extends her hand to shake. She wears a pretty ponytail, and holds a pretty notebook, Disguising her fear. The handsome man is at her side, Her defender in battle. She has faith in this place, the people, the work she hopes to find here. She will never renounce the …

Write, back.

More than two years ago, I vanished from here. It's been that long since I've written anything on this breast cancer blog, and I've had a hard time figuring out how to start again. It feels kind of like returning to the gym after a hiatus; it is so much harder than starting from scratch. I think it is because we bring along the memories …

Picking up the pieces

My friend is in the early days of survivorship. As with so many difficult tasks we women have faced— things like labor, for instance, and plane trips with toddlers, and cancer—you think you will always remember how hard every part was. You are certain you will never forget the details, and the difficulty. But when …

Scars as beauty

“We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, 'I survived'.”  -Chris Cleave, Little Bee Beth Whaanga knows who her friends are. She'd had breast cancer, so I bet she kind of knew that before …

Joy for the moment

"Joy is the most vulnerable emotion we experience." - Brene Brown We called it “Irish fatalism” in my family, and I always thought that it was a gift and a curse, unique to my clan and elevated to an art form by each generation, kind of like the flying Wallendas and their high wire act. …

Dream with me

This week in Washington, the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s historic speech is being celebrated. Despite the half-century that has passed, and my being a white girl from the suburbs who had not even been born when the speech was given, I continue to be inspired by Dr. King’s words. He spoke of struggle, and …

Courage and the car

I was sitting in the car in the Target parking lot. It was springtime, and in addition to the usual business of running a household of six, I had a graduation and a religious celebration coming up: there was a lot to do, and I had a long list. We have talked about the magic of Target …

Three little words

It is cancer. I thought I remembered what it felt like to hear those words, and what those first, awful days after a cancer diagnosis are like. Like all cancer survivors, I remember some of the specifics in excruciating detail: the date and time of day, the spot in the kitchen where I picked up …

Soundtrack

I was on my way back from a most unexpected trip to Planet Breast Cancer and, since running is not my favorite thing, I needed to develop a playlist to keep me moving in the exercise portion of my treatment. Scientists have now officially discovered what we all already knew:  that music has an amazing ability to “take you …

Running is not my favorite thing

Running is not my favorite thing. Even as a kid, it was clear that neither my size nor my innate athletic ability were on my side. Naturally able in things literary and musical, I identified myself as a “non-athlete”, which was, I realize now, a convenient label but a big mistake. It was true that …

No words

I only got one detention in school. It was in the seventh grade, and I had already been warned, mind you, for the last time, that further note-passing between my friend and me would result in a detention. But I had something important to say, something that could not wait, and I could not resist …

Celestial voyage

“Here. Do you see? These dots here; they look like stars.” The radiologist is kind, speaking to me slowly as she points out the constellation on the backlit mammogram. They are in my right breast, she explains, these celestial beings that are often sentinels of cancer before is a lump. If I look very carefully, …

Small things

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” ~Mother Theresa I am old enough to know, now, that really wise people admit from the get-go that they cannot possibly know what a New Year holds. I find this realization a little scary, but my continued efforts …

Whose holiday is it, anyway?

I have been up since 4:40 am. I have been awake because although I have had the holiday cards stacked on the bookshelf since December 7,  I cannot get the address labels to print and I have not had time to hand-write them. I left a gift for my niece Greta in my Amazon shopping …

Tell me a story. Yours.

“I could not stop talking because now that I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us. ” ~Chris Cleave, Little Bee I guess it is the time of year, rich with tales of journey and mystery in practically …

ATLAS, shrug

I could feel the collective dread starting even before the data were released yesterday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The breaking news involved tamoxifen, both savior and nemesis for many women whose breast cancer is—or was—sensitive to estrogen. It has long been known that, taken for five years, tamoxifen does a great job …

It's Complicated

My ex has been in the news this week, showing up in journal articles and editorials. My ex is named Statistics, and our on-again, off-again relationship is still a little raw. We used to be together, and we sometimes still see each other socially and professionally. In Facebook parlance, “It’s complicated.” We met at my …

The Back Story

In 2006, I had a busy life: four kids aged 15 to 4, one funny husband, an enormous dog, an old house to fix up, and a really good attitude about turning forty.  I was confident that this would be the decade in which I would finally mellow, be more laid back, let things go, …