You watch the movies. Anytime someone says the word cancer, the music swells, the eyes on the screen grow teary and there’s a big running monologue of “what if?”
And then there’s the girl in my creative writing class said last year: “I mean, cancer’s really not a big deal anymore. We’ve become so de-sensitized to it.”
Maybe that’s true.
Unless you’re a person who has lived the reality that is cancer. When I was nine, I watched my mother battle breast cancer. Then, in my junior year of high school, she was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. In the last five years, it’s come back three times.
Last year, a tumor perforated her bowel, and we spent Thanksgiving huddled around her hospital bed in the ICU, watching a football game on one of those tiny TVs. Mom looked right at Dad and said, “Worst holiday ever.”
I’m not telling this story for pity’s sake. I’m telling it because it’s a true and remarkable fact.
Ten years ago my mother would’ve lost her battle with cancer, and at tonight’s luminary ceremony, I’d be writing her name on a sticker that said “In Memory.”
But because of the advances made in cancer research — in part through donations raised at events like UNC Relay — I get to put “In Honor of Christine Hartley” on one of those white paper bags.
When I was 12, I watched Mom cross the finish line at the 3-day Avon walk for breast cancer. She told my sister and me that she walked it for us. Tonight, I’ll walk in her honor, and at some point make that cheesy phone call home to tell her I’m proud of her.
