Letter of Love

My mom and I have always been close. I mean like “Maaa! come look, one boob is definitely bigger than the other!” close. So when she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer the fall of 2009 and taken for reconstructive surgery, you can imagine the crumble that happened in the middle of Syracuse University’s quad. After 22 hours in the operating room and 22 phone calls from me to my Dad begging him to let me come home, she emerged like the champ she was, waking up from anesthesia asking if the doctors gave her a tummy tuck while down there. Three years later and she’s still cancer free.

I seriously can’t imagine losing my mom. I remember when I turned fourteen she said “I’m your best friend”. Obviously at the time I thought she was a true life nutcase. Fourteen years old and your mom’s your best friend? LOSER! But she was right! Eight years later, she’s still the only person I can rely on to provide me with unfiltered free of alter motive advice.

It took her a year to fully recover from the procedure, but during that process she took the time to learn more about herself as a woman. Not Mom, not wife, not grandma – Wendy the woman. When I came home for spring break that March she was different, she had a glow, she looked restored, and she truly was. She said that having her breast removed initially made her feel like less of a person, but a journey into herself quickly revealed that she was much more than her outward appearance. Her journey of self discovery was transcended from that moment into the way I would begin to step into my own womanhood.

By: