One Year

One year.  Yesterday was one year from the day I found out about my mother's cancer.  One year, from the day my world as I knew it, crumbled before me and my mind raced as I scrambled to cling to the pieces.  Denial, a wonderful defense mechanism, which at first feels good.   To have a belief in waking from a nightmare is possible, though denial only truly disguises another gut wrenching, heart dropping reality.  One year.

In one year, my mother had discovered her cancer, had surgery, chemotherapy.  Her hair has fallen out and grown back, erasing the scar.  With the growth of hair, comes the growth of new hope.  All the useless, and now potentially deadly organs that once housed myself and my sisters, created and gave life to, gone.  Diseased and useless.  The first time I ever had to see my mother sick, lying helpless in a hospital bed, too weak to move, wondering if this was the first of many nights I would spend there.  Now, my mother calls me daily, breathless as she manages to hold an hour long conversation while exercising rather vigorously between her full time job and countless errands and phenomenal grandmothering.  One year.

In one year, my Jada was dreamed of, conceived, carried in my womb, delivered in my car, and is now the amazing little smiling creature before me.  One year.  My baby girl, my first born, has transformed into a little girl, from a baby who could barely crawl, to a child I can barely run after, speaking in full sentences, caring for her new sister, painting pictures, signing and singing about a hundred songs I never knew she knew.  Just one year.

One year.  We made the move from Massachusetts to our dream life in Connecticut.  Bought the house we loved in the town we adored.  Painted the walls with my own two hands and started our life here, planted the roots of our young family, among the roots of the many trees that have been hear for decades, some maybe for a century.  All this, in one year.

So many amazing moments, most that I will vividly remember all my life.  From that terrifying night I realized my life would never be the same again, all security ripped away, to now understanding that same terror is liberating.  Because now that you are here, cancer, we can fight you.  It is the unseen enemy I fear most, and I see you, clearly.  I do not fear you now.  You have been revealed.  And we have conquered you.  All, in just one year.