An influential Personevent
It seemed like it would make her die, just speaking it. So I didn't tell anyone, not even my best friends. At school I would slip into a fantastical dreamland, nobody there knew that I should be troubled, pensive. I put on my best front and paraded around the school halls with some sort of smile plastered on my face. At lunchtime I'd stare at my food thinking that my friends should know. I thought of a million different ways to tell them. Each time that I came close to telling them, I would think about their potential reactions. There would be the normal lunchtime banter going on, complaints about the ranch dressing, and I would blurt out, "Hey guys, my mom has breast cancer." The whole cafeteria would turn silent and the plastic forks would drop from their hands, making a sad little clinking noise. Then I would stare at my food mentally kicking myself for having opened my mouth. I chose to say nothing. I remember very clearly the day that I went to go sit with her while she got her chemotherapy. I only did this once because it was too hard for me. I walked down an overly-lit sterile hallway trailing behind my dad. When we reached her room I wished that I could j
Out of courtesy to my mom and fear that my friends would find out, I didn't have them over to the house for a long time. I didn't want them to notice anything, like the bottles of medicine all lined up at my mom's place at the table. Each pill a tiny soldier waging war on my mother's body. There were always huge quantities of lemons in the refrigerator. A friend would come over, "Hey Karen, why so many lemons? It's the middle of winter!" I couldn't risk having to explain to them that the taste of lemons made my mom less nauseous. The ceiling of the bathroom had hair on it. She tried so hard to camouflage her hair loss by blow drying her hair for over half an hour every morning. She would turn her head upside down, use some hairspray, then blow dry, then more hairspray and more blow drying. I don't think she realized her effect on the ceiling. I became best friends with my mother during the course of the cancer. I really grew up during those eight long months of fixing the family dinners, trying to be strong for her and trying to take over certain aspects of her role as "mom" when she couldn't. I think that while hard to endure, her cancer has been good for
Some common words found in the essay are:
, Hey Karen, OK Half, McCoy Yeah, stare food, bag lemon drops, hairspray blow, blow drying, lemon drops, bag lemon,
Approximate Word count = 791
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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