When I was pregnant, I discovered that I had developed breast cancer – just like my mother before me. One day, the child I was carrying may face the same hard choices
When I was five, I would talk to my mother while she was in the bath. When she stood to get out, the water fell from her, her skin pink from the heat. Her body was miraculous to me. Women’s bodies are miraculous, with the things they can do, but I didn’t know any of that then. I just knew that she was soft and perfect, and mine.
By the time my mother developed breast cancer, I was 30. She was double that age and there was an ocean between us: I was married and living in New York, so when the news came, I couldn’t hold her to me, or be a practical support. I sat on my bed and cried. The next time I saw her, it was all over. One breast removed and carefully reconstructed. The cancer gone. My husband asked me, as we approached my parents in the airport, whether it was OK to give my mum a hug. The surgery was recent; I wasn’t sure. But it was OK. She seemed the same.
