I’m sure everyone this week wrote about Breast Cancer Awareness…so I will too. My paternal grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 5 years old. I vaguely remember seeing her after her mastectomy while she was getting chemotherapy. I remember her hair not looking quite right and she just looked like she didn’t feel well at all. But after what seem like just a short time, she was back to her normal self. She ran the MHMR (Mental Health and Mental Retardation) Center for the county. She held summer camp for all of her grandchildren, all 14 of us. We stayed with her for a week during the summer doing arts and crafts, visiting the zoo, having sleep overs and other fun things. But then when I was about 9 years old, she got real sick again. I didn’t understand what was happening but the cancer was back. She was in and out of the hospital. The cancer had progressed to far to do anything so we all just waited. We slowly watched her lose weight, lose her appetite, lose her energy…lose everything thing that was truly her. I felt so bad for my father and his brothers. My dad’s father died when he was just 16 years old from lung cancer. Now they were having to watch their beloved mother go through the same pain as their father.
We still visit my grandmother when we drive through town. We drop off fresh flowers and talk for a little while. It is not very often we get up there because none of our family lives there anymore. But sometimes we go out of the way just to say “Hello”. She is buried next to her first husband, my dad’s father. It is such a pieceful place.
