Ten Years. Marking Time. Again.

One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind when we ushered in 2018, was gosh, it’s ten years since Mother died. Ten years. A whole decade. One-tenth of a century. 120 months. 520 weeks. 3,650 days. That old cliche, it still feels like yesterday fits. So does that other one, it seems like a lifetime ago. Both are true.

It’s been ten years.

Ten years feels different. I feel the heaviness of this particular milestone. Ten years. That’s a decent chunk of time.

I’ve been thinking about how to best mark time this year. I mark time every year here on the blog. How could I not?

But how do I mark ten years?

Sometimes I wonder if I’d be looking at my breast cancer experience through a completely different lens if my mother had not died from this wretched disease. Would I be more inclined to embrace the pink shenanigans? Would I be more oblivious to my own risk of recurrence? Would I be advocating quite as hard for those I know and those I do not who live with metastatic disease? Would hearing breast cancer being casually framed as a gift or an opportunity for enlightenment rile me up as much as it does?

I like to think my views and advocacy work would be pretty much the same, even if my mother had not had breast cancer at all. But who really knows?

Not like it matters. It is what it is. I am who I am.

It’s been ten years.

My mother died from metastatic breast cancer on March 6, 2008. She had received her initial, early-stage diagnosis mere days after first finding her lump on my birthday in 2004. Yeah, cancer is a f***ing bastard in oh-so-many ways.

We “caught it” early. I always think that phrase, caught it early, sounds cavalier. It’s not like you capture cancer, contain it in a jar like a lightning bug and watch it be snuffed out. If only.

A lumpectomy and radiation were supposed to be enough to “beat” (another trite, inadequate word) my mother’s early-stage cancer. They weren’t. When she was diagnosed, we didn’t yet know about her BRCA2 gene mutation, much less my own. Would knowing when she was diagnosed have made a difference? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, that knowledge came later. Her cancer metastasized in the fall of 2007. Before the next spring arrived, she was gone dead.

Cancer is a thief. A brutal taker of loved ones, and I hate it.

It’s been ten years.

I don’t mark time to garner sympathy. I don’t need or want that. I mark time to honor my mother and all those stolen by metastatic breast cancer. There are so many. Too many, just too many. I mark time to share my cancer truths. I mark time to shed a bit more light on a disease that is anything but pink, pretty or party-like. I mark time to once again shout from my keyboard that we need more $$$ for research specific to metastatic disease – everything about it.

It’s been ten years.

This means roughly 400,000 more women and men have died from metastatic breast cancer. 400,000 more families have since lost dear ones. It’s a staggering number, don’t you agree?

Every year when I mark time here on the blog, I mention the numbers to make a point, but of course, it’s not really about the numbers at all.

It’s about the faces, the dear ones, behind the numbers. And the families that are left to pick up the pieces. 

A lot of family stuff has happened in the ten years since my mother died. There have been graduations, anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, job changes, moves, new pets as well as saying goodbye to beloved old ones, births, deaths and of course, my cancer diagnosis. To be sure, I miss my mother on all the big-stuff days, but honestly, I miss her most on ordinary, mundane days. I miss her calls on some random Monday. I miss our chats about movies and dogs and North Dakota and my grandparents and gardening and kids and books and whatever.

Sometimes I am glad my mother wasn’t here to witness my diagnosis and all the crap that followed and follows still. Sometimes I am pissed off she hasn’t been here to witness, to listen, to commiserate with – mostly just to mother.

It’s been ten years.

I mark time to remember my mother and yes, to talk about metastatic breast cancer. But I also mark time to remember other things about her. All the things that made her who she was. Before cancer.

A before cancer photo we recently found. Way before. Not sure if it was a high school or college photo.

It’s a lot to remember and for this, I am grateful. Far too many daughters and sons will struggle to remember a mother stolen in their youth by metastatic disease, and some will be unable to remember at all. My heart aches for families like those. My heart aches for all families impacted by this still too often deadly disease.

Taken on my mother’s last trip to my house in the summer of 2007.

And so, I mark time. Again.

It’s been ten years.

I remember, Mother. I remember it all.

I miss you.

It’s been ten years.

#wewillnotforget.

Who do you mark time for?

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