TWENTY YEARS

Today is the twentieth anniversary of my mom's death. Twenty years! That's a long time!

The last year has been a hard one for me in regards to her death.

I've had a friend reach what she called "the beginning of the end" of her battle against breast cancer. I've never met her in person, but we've known each other online for years. We've had conversations about being the child of a mom with breast cancer, as she's made decisions about how she parents her kids, who are about the same ages as our boys, in the light of her diagnosis - info they may want to know later in life if and when she dies young, ways to share her wisdom and practical info after she's gone, etc. Those conversations were hypothetical when we had them, but things change. The day I found out that she'd gotten a bad update I just sat at the table and sobbed. My heart breaks for her. For her husband. Especially for her kids. She is my first peer to reach that point with cancer and it's a really unnerving for me.

I've had another friend just get diagnosed with ovarian cancer last weekend. While it's a different cancer than my mom had, it's still a reality check.

A gal I'm acquainted with at church is going through chemo. She's about my age with four kids about the ages of mine. Another reality check.

While seeing women in my life, my peers, battle cancer has been hard for me, there are two other things that have been harder.

First, I'm getting older. Not just older, but very close to my mom's diagnosis age. She was 36 years 8 months when she got diagnosed. I'm 35 years 7 months. I'm 13 months away from the age she was when she found a lump in her breast. Only 13 months. That's not very long.

I often think about how I'd feel if I got a diagnosis at the same age. Specifically, I wonder about what kind of regrets I'd have as I faced the possibility of dying at a relatively young age. Sometimes that helps me keep things in perspective, other times it makes me beat myself up more over the areas I feel like I'm failing.

Second, I just had a baby. As I've said before, my worst fear is not living long enough to raise my kids to adulthood. The older our kids get, the less anxiety I have about that, as they're more likely to remember me and the time I spent with them, but I'm back to square one with Tyler ... with less time on the clock. That bothers me a lot.

I realize what happened to my mom may not happen to me, but you just never know. If she could die in her thirties of breast cancer without any family history of the disease, then it's obviously possible that I could, especially since I do have a family history. Ugh.

I hate that these thoughts are always lingering in the back of my mind. I hate that they're based on something that could happen, not something that is happening. Sometimes I feel a little crazy.