Once upon a time

Once upon a time, when things weren't so f***ked up and people didn't get things like herpes from sharing a bottle of Coke, or children were snatched from shopping malls, life was simple. For the most part, life was good.

But then as time creeps up on us and we start getting things like the internet and landfills and holes in the ozone layer, the incidence of cancer also seems to be on the rise. And nowadays, you seem to be able to get cancer from just about anything. Too much sun. Drinking water from plastic bottles. Eating too much fish.

Funny thing, cancer. You look around and see all the people around you and you can't tell who has it, who has survived it, who will get it.

You look around and see you all these people and you think to yourself that all these people are other people's people. Their fathers, their sisters, their brothers. Always other people's people. Never your own people.

I found out two days ago that my mother has breast cancer.

No more news or updates about its level of seriousness. Just the text message from my sister in South Africa.

"I would call but I am at home with a very sick baby. Mom has cancer. They're starting with chemo asap."

BAM! Like a brick to the side of the head, let me tell you.

My sister told me that she'd had a lump biopsied and that they were sending it to be tested. And so now, all I can do is hope and pray that they have detected it early enough. All I can do is be there to support my mother who I am sure is scared shitless by what lies ahead.

They say the chance of a woman having invasive breast cancer some time during her life is about 1 in 8. The chance of dying from breast cancer is about 1 in 35. Dear God, please let my mother be one of the 34 who makes it through this. Please let her be one of the survivors, because as much as her and I have had our differences and difficulties, she is my mother and I love her and I am not yet quite ready to say goodbye.

I have already said goodbye to an uncle, an aunt and a grandmother to cancer. Please, please, not my mother too.

Dear God, please.