Sometimes it skips a generation...

...this was the mantra with which I was raised. I know this was meant to ease my concerns, but there is no way to adequately describe the guilt and self-loathing I endured as a result of these five words. Each month, when the subject resurfaced, I would silently pray that it would skip me. Then the guilt would wash over me like an angry rain that left me feeling cold and empty. How could I think such a thing? The thought was fleeting, and as quickly as it entered, I would push it to the dark corners of my mind and pray I didn't "jinx" anyone. If it does skip me, what does that mean for my mother and future children? Does this somehow mean that I, in some small way, wish it on them? Could it skip two generations…do I dare to pray for three? These were the thoughts that consumed me; month after month, year after year.

Before I was old enough to comprehend...

...what breast cancer was; I knew it could someday kill me. I only knew breast cancer as a phantom disease that claimed innocent lives without warning. There wasn’t much discussion in the earlier years about the details; I just knew our family history put me at a higher risk than others, and that I too would someday have to deal with this vicious disease. Every month my mother would diligently perform her monthly self exam. She took this opportunity to remind me of my risk, and that someday I too would need to perform the monthly ritual of searching for the lump that would alter life as I knew it. Even at that young age I could tell she was really scared for me, and that was terrifying.

For as long as I can remember...

...breast cancer has been a looming threat in my life. I can’t really pinpoint that defining moment when the news was first delivered. The information wasn’t ceremoniously passed to me at a particular age, it just always was. As a young girl, I remember huge family gatherings with both my mother and father’s family all celebrating the holidays together. Especially birthdays; birthdays were huge in our family then. I remember uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, even great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. Everyone celebrated together. All, that is, except the women in my mother’s family. The women in my mother’s family have all been struck down at a very young age, robbed of years of family gatherings and all that life had to offer. My grandmother died from breast cancer at 34-years old and my great-grandmother died from breast cancer at 32-years old. March 2008 marked the 7-year anniversary of my mom's passing, after her diagnosis at 47-years old. Her doctors told her that based on the staging and aggressiveness of her disease, she most likely had it since she was 37. These are the facts, and I seemed to have always known them, as matter-of-factly as that.