I'd just broken up with my then-girlfriend for something like the
third time in 10 months. I was tired of working at the newspaper
where I'd been for five years, and simultaneously worried about its
parent company's future. I was in a small town with no other options
available in my profession. I was lonely, unhappy, and spending
entirely too much time trapped inside my own head.
And it was raining.
The phone rang. My mom. "Jeff, there's something I need to talk to
you about," she said.
I immediately had a feeling something was wrong. "What is it,
Mom?"
Mom cleared her throat, and in the quiet, "let's-not-panic-here"
voice I'd become accustomed to over 34 years, said: "I just want to
let you know that I've been diagnosed with breast cancer."
A black cloud started creeping in on my field of vision. My mom
kept talking, about what I don't remember -- doctors and treatments
and dates and surgeries, I gather -- but as was my wont those days,
my thoughts instantly leapt to myself, about the gathering darkness
in my eyes and the dizziness in my head, and whether this is what
happened right before people passed out.
I don't remember a lot of the conversation from that point on. I
remember Mom asking me to pray for her. (Of course I would.) I
remember asking if there was anything else I could do. (Of course
there wasn't.)
I remember feeling hopeless and helpless, vaguely sick to my
stomach, and most of all, totally inadequate to do anything about
this latest horrible setback in my life.
In short, I handled it all wrong. I'm not proud of it.
My reaction was about selfishness and self-centeredness, the
things always at the root of my troubles. I vacillated between "Why
is this happening to me?" and "I can't deal with this right now."
Neither one did Mom, or me, one bit of good.
I didn't call her very often while she underwent treatment. I
didn't go home for a visit, at least not in the first six months.
Like I said, I'm not proud of it.
Mom could have used more of my attention, because she had a pretty
rough go of it. To determine how thoroughly the cancer had infested
her body -- and make no mistake, it is an infestation, this disease,
like mosquitoes or vermin, only of the killer variety -- doctors
tested 13 of her lymph nodes. Signs of cancer in three of the nodes
would have been considered high. Seven of Mom's were cancerous.
Medically -- and no one said this out loud, of course, because
they just don't -- Mom was a Stage 3 cancer patient, right out of the
