A Sea of Tears

My mother lost her breast today. She was so sure she wouldn't. After all, three biopsies have come and gone, all of them joyously proclaiming one thing: she didn't have cancer. But, as it turned out, it wasn't a three-out-of-five deal. This was no best-of-five cancer series. You get one "positive" reading, and that's it -- you lose. My mother was so sure she wouldn't lose her breast. She closed her eyes, thinking everything would be okay. And I sat there, alone, outside the Operating Room, crying for six hours, as doctors dissected nodes. Only one thing ran through my head: "How did this happen?" Did I not pray hard enough? I looked out the window, at the sky, and thought, accusingly, "She had so much faith in You." She was so sure.

Hours later, they allowed me to see her in the Recovery Room. She opened her eyes, looked straight at me, and said, "They took my breast." Then she started weeping tears no child should see her mother shed. "It's okay, mommy," I murmured softly, against her ear. I smiled at her -- a stupid, lame smile that hoped to allay her grief -- because in this twisted scene, the crybaby of the family had to be the strong one.

My heart was -- is -- broken.

I'm posting this one, because I want to remember the folly of believing that everything would always, in the end, turn out okay.