Team Tiara

my grandma

In 2004, we were preparing for our second child, and I had applied to law school. I was on top of the world. We had recently purchased our first home, and I was looking forward to what I was anticipating to be a very exciting year.  In May, my grandmother had what we thought was a stroke, but after a week of tests, they sent her home and didn’t quite know what was wrong. They also said she had the beginnings of dementia—I now think she had been sick for some time, but the doctors missed the true diagnosis.  Her mammogram was clear that March. There was no lump, or any of the “typical” signs of breast cancer until it was already well established. In early June, I elatedly called her to tell her my great news that I was getting into law school, and I received via my aunts, the devastating news that the cause of her ills was inflammatory breast cancer.  It had already spread into her lymph nodes, and doctors gave her 6 months to live. It broke my heart, because when she told me, she said that she will get over it.  In July, all of her children and their families that could come gathered together and surrounded her with love and hugs. I still remember crystal clear how hard it was to leave that Sunday. She was at my Aunt Mary’s house in a hospital bed, and she gave me a big hug, and took my shoulders and told me how much she loved me and how truly proud she was of me and how I had grown up. Then she looked in my eyes with tears and asked me if I understood what she was saying. I shook my head yes, and kissed her goodbye, and that was the last time that I saw her, although I called at least every other day.  She was gone on September 21, 2004.  A few weeks prior to that, I lost a cousin, and by the time I did the walk in 2006, a friend was in remission, and my aunt in Germany had begun her battle.  When the time arrived to walk those 60 miles, remembering why I was there kept me going to the finish line.

Since then, two of my husband’s aunts have been diagnosed, and are in remission. My step-grandmother, who had a tumor removed a few years ago, had it to return after a double mastectomy, and it entered her lungs. She went to be with Jesus on May 9, 2009. I now also walk in her memory. On Mother’s Day this year, my aunt Meme passed away after a very long and courageous battle with ovarian cancer.   I walk for her as well, because no one should ever ever have to experience that kind of pain and suffering.

I walk for all of them, in honor of the current fighters and survivors, and for those departed in honor of their memory. I walk because I want to see an end to all of these parasitic cancers who take many before we are ready for  them to go. I walk for the mothers who will never see their kids get married, or hold their first grandbaby.  I walk because I want our kids, grandkids, nieces, and nephews, husbands, and wives to be able to pick up the phone and call their loved one whenever they want, and there still be a voice on the other end.  But I also remember that God has a plan and a purpose for each and every one of us, and he is everpresent in our journey.