The innocence of childhood and playing outdoors until the streetlights came on were highlights for me. These memories were the cherished ones. All my friends, my age or close to it, who lived in town were all of the same mindset.

We’d all race home, eat our cookies and drink our milk, do our homework and then race back to the school yard, where we would play: scrub or soccer, or in the winter, build hills that we could slide down on our magic carpets, or create dramatic and extensive snow forts where a good snowball fight was the norm since during school hours it was forbidden.

"I got you!" one of us would say after a snowball he threw to the head.

"Look out," another one said, alerting a teammate to a snowball coming in their direction.

Our routine had seldom varied for the last six years of elementary school. It didn’t matter who showed up in the yard—boys or girls—or from which school the kids were from—the Catholic or the public—all were welcome. Friendships began over the games played on the field, where we learned a lot from one another. Those who were in classes together maintained their friendships over the years and still exist today.

Texts flew between us frequently.

<<Hey, you got time to meet for a coffee?>> A text to the group went out from J.P.

<<I can finally! Time and where?>> Michelle texted.

<<Usual, d'uh>> Lucy texted.

<<I'm in>> Rob texted.

<<Me, too>> I texted.

<<Can't do it. Kids: gymnastics.>> Jason texted.

<<Okay, if the rest of you can make it just show up. Too many texts for me.>> Brian said.

Once we hit the higher grades, we thought the subjects got more intense and demanding. Topics discussed in seventh grade classes were designed to make us more socially and globally minded.

But little did I know, and some of my friends did, that preparing for a more real-world feel would raise our awareness and move us to a point we could never come back from.

Just knowing the possibilities of the array of social issues that exist and touch our lives in some way was scary enough. I learned from school issues information that I wish my parents—who I realised as an adult were dysfunctional and weren’t capable of anything more than what they did for my siblings and me at the time would have taught me about. Since it affected both of them in their daily lives and their parenting, which affected us kids, we were all like dear in the headlights for a long while.

I happily listened and became educated on the unpleasant social issues associated with various diseases and addictions. My rude awakening covered two topics.

"Alcoholism, an addiction that could lead to death from excessive amounts that attack the liver (cirrhosis)," was what the teacher told us. One topic I realised was happening in my life.

The other was "cancer, a deadly group of cells that ran rampant, multiplying at an unhealthy rate through the area of the body afflicted. The cancer treatments at the time were intense and deteriorated the body’s healthy cells, killing the cancer cells at the same time. The chosen path to beating cancer was an operation when possible, followed by radiation, chemotherapy, or both." As the teacher completed the lesson, I felt the sweat roll down the small of my back, and my head was drenched.

Just the weekend prior, my mother sat with my sister—who was four years older than me—and me and told us, "I have cancer; it's small and I will be undergoing an operation tomorrow."

Without further explanation,. I said, "Cancer? How?" She wasn't a smoker, drinker or unhealthy food eater, and she lived a healthy lifestyle. It didn't make sense to me. If anything, my dad should've been the one to get cancer. He was a voracious smoker. It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair. That was a difficult lesson to learn. Especially because I was 12.

She said the following Monday she was going into surgery for a mastectomy. I remembered thinking—I don't even know what that was. She explained it as losing her breasts to save her life. I screamed at her inside my head, "I can't hear you. I can't get past the word cancer and now you throw a word like mastectomy at me."

My simple way of understanding things about cancer treatments is Catch 22: The steps taken to kill the cancer were so potent on the body that they knocked out many of the good cells or lowered the immune system altogether.

My father, who was an alcoholic, supposedly delivered the same message about our mother's news to our brother, who was two years older than me.

None of us talked about how we felt. The news of our mother’s illness, our father’s drinking and what was in store for us kids next were all too much for me to handle. We all knew deep inside that without our mother to run the household, things would crumble quickly and we would be left to our own devices.

"I'm not feeling too well," I said.

"We don't care," my brother yelled.

"I don't want to hear either of you anymore. Shut up! Just shut up!" my sister screamed.

It was our good fortune that my mother worked in a hospital as the Head of Medical Records; she knew all of the doctors on staff. They frequented the library, which was adjacent to her office. Many of the doctors stopped in to see her because she was a petite, attractive brunette with dark brown eyes who had a great sense of humour and a lively personality.

She was, as others said, “the full package.” But she was also great at her job and the doctors relied on her for all things they required from the medical library and patient records.

I'm convinced that when she discovered her lump on a Friday while she was at work and approached a doctor with whom she had a good rapport and who made things happen, she was scheduled in the operating room the following Monday.

The fast-acting response of the doctor and the relationships she forged with numerous doctors are what saved her life. She jumped the queue that day. Forgive me for saying I was glad. I didn’t care if it wasn’t fair. I knew her operation was necessary for her survival. It wasn’t relevant to me if another girl my age had a mother who needed a mastectomy and her mother’s date was pushed back to accommodate mine.

The operation was a success, and my mother remained in recovery at the hospital for a long time in postoperative care. Each day, my father went to see her and returned home with booze on his breath and a stagger to his walk. I remember thinking, How could he drive the car home without swerving off the road? He was the only person allowed to go into her room. But his lack of communication skills wouldn't allow him to tell me what was really going on with her.

Every time I saw him hungover in the morning, I would ask, “What about today? Can I see her today?”

Each time I asked, I was told, “Not yet,“ and he would hold his head as if he were looking for sympathy.

After four consecutive weeks of being told, “Not yet,” I blew upI shouted and pounded my fists on the table.

“What the hell do you mean? Not yet. What is going on? Did she die? Is that why you aren’t telling me anything?”

The frustration overwhelmed me and I was done with the bullshit. My father, ill-equipped to handle me, tried to grab my arms. I moved away quickly and danced around the kitchen table away from him.

I had no sympathy for someone who drank too much and had a hangover every morning. To me, he was like the poster boy for the definition of insanity: always doing the same thing but expecting a different result. Watching him do the same thing repeatedly was disgusting to me.I wasn't a child who allowed anyone to snow me or tell me stuff and easily accepted it without question. My brother and my sister, who were afraid of our dad, took him at face value. They were afraid of him, but not me; I wasn't. I didn’t fear him at all, outside of his physical strength over me. Nonetheless, I stood tall against him and accepted nothing he said because I knew he would say anything for a drink. I knew his word was worth shit and I was only 12.

Many firsts happened while my mother was away in the hospital. I missed her when: I started my period; I learned to take care of myself properly; I made myself food to eat at home and for lunches while at school; I kissed my first boyfriend; and I practised my trombone.

My dad gave me money for groceries and would take me into town to the local grocery store while he sat in the truck in the parking lot and drank his Molson Canadian beer from a cooler he named Oscar. My sister and brother weren’t useful in that regard. Neither one could cook or clean anything worth a lick.

After days of denying my requests repeatedly, my dad finally caved and brought me into the city of Windsor to see my mother at the hospital, Hotel Dieu, where she worked and was now a patient.

"Jo, tomorrow's the big day. I'm taking you to see your mother." He looked at me like he was doing me a favour.

At the hospital, I walked slowly through the corridors. It reminded me of the last time I was there with my grandfather, who was sick in a wheel chair, just before he died. The second I stepped into the hallway, the smell of antiseptic choked my throat and burned my nostrils. I thought, Such uninviting colours the walls were---so dull and gloomy. I remembered thinking, Such a drab scene for people who are sick and dying. Why would a hospital paint their walls like that? They should be bright and cheerful. So stupid.

Once we arrived at my mother’s room, I was surprised to find her bed empty. I panicked; fear gripped my body like a tightly knit turtleneck in the winter. Moments went by and while my dad tried to find someone at the nurse’s station to help us locate mom, I stood alone in her room and stared at her bed. I touched it where she had laid last and felt where it was cold. She hadn’t been there in a while.

I looked out the window with my hands in my coat pockets. I felt the lint and fabric, and somehow it felt comforting to me. My mom had given me the coat. Soon enough, I had to go to the bathroom and while I was in there, I heard some commotion. I washed my hands as fast as I could and ran out to see my mother lying on the bed.

I froze. My heart beat like a jackhammer. I looked away faster than I looked at her. I looked away when I saw her face. My mouth hung open.

"Hi, Josie," she said. Her voice was soft and feeble.

"Hi, mom," I responded. I held her hand because I wasn't allowed to kiss her. I gave her something I had made for her with my doodle art that she gave me for my birthday. It brightened her face for a brief moment. But her face returned to its dreary and gaunt appearance.I couldn’t understand why she didn’t look like the woman who left for surgery on that Monday morning. I was naive about what the post-surgery and the illness meant for a survivor. Even after waiting four weeks and a few days to go and see her, I looked for some semblance of my mother in her face, but she didn’t look remotely the same to me.

The woman I knew as my mother, who was always professionally dressed, with her hair and makeup done perfectly to the nines in the latest fashion, had been reduced to skin and bones. She wasn’t my mother, as I remembered her.

This woman had a macabre look to her face. Her pallor, pale white, and stunning brown eyes now looked like dark, round oil spots—lifeless and dull. There was no sparkle left and her million-dollar smile—something I had always counted on—was lost to her now.

I searched for a glimmer of something that I could take away with me from our brief visit to keep me sustained until she could come home. I had begged every night for two weeks straight to see her but once I got my wish, I was angry for having gotten it—at the unreality I had of seeing my mother again.

My head and body were warm and I broke into a sweat that quickly became chills as we left her room and boarded the elevator. Once I had seen what I saw, I couldn’t unsee it.

One writing project we were given at school, I recalled, was to write about our hero. I chose my uncle. Originally, I wrote about my mom but I was taught that our family business had no business at school. Instead of ripping it up, I put it in a card and sent it with my dad when he took my brother and my sister to see my mom. I never went again.

****
For days, my insides were full of discontent and I barely ate anything. My schoolwork and my sports were not as important to me anymore and my focus was off. There were larger things in life that mattered more and held my interest.

One of my teachers, who coached me, gave me a pep talk since I had confided in him.

"You can honour your mom's absence at home by doing your best in school and in sports, like you always do. That will make her most proud and happy. And when she returns, you can share with her all your medals and trophies."

I smiled and said, "Thank you, sir." It was like I didn't want to have fun and felt guilty if I did, since my mom wasn't feeling well. He gave me permission to do what I loved again.

My sports carried me through the rough patches and I excelled in my studies as well. My athletic prowess had my face in the paper almost weekly for badminton, basketball, track, soccer and volleyball. Track and field day was another one of my favourite days of the year but that school year it wasn't because without my mother cheering me on from the sidelines, it wasn't the same.

****
Leaving the hospital after stepping out of the elevator, I said nothing in the car on the way home.

My father tried to entice me, "How about a cheeseburger with fries and a coke? How does that sound?"

Fast food shit wasn’t for me; I wasn't buying it. "Nah, I'm not hungry. Thanks."

My uncertainty about whether my mother was going to live sent nerves in my stomach haywire with a twist. The worst part was not having anyone to talk to about how I felt.

When she finally came home, the dining room was cleared of all its contents and a hospital bed was set up in there. One of my mother’s cousins came to stay with us.

The day she arrived home from the hospital, I saw her brave face. She stepped out of the car with my father’s assistance. She looked up at my bedroom window and saw me there. She smiled and waved at me. I waved back but didn’t come down to see her for a long while.

When I did, I was speechless. She told me that what got her through the roughest parts of her surgery and recovery was thinking about us kids. She said she knew all about my accomplishments in sports because she had been reading the local newspaper. I had made the front page for a few sports-related events and she said she was proud of me.

I listened and said, "No, momma, it’s me who is proud of you. You wear a brave face.” I hugged her and we broke down and cried. She’s still my hero and I can still see her brave face in my mind.

Lily Finch is an emerging writer who has published both fiction and nonfiction works. She has been honing her craft and while she prefers fiction, she has discovered that nonfiction, in particular, has more to offer her in her writing.When not writing, Lily spends her time with her family in her backyard oasis. Most of the time, you can find her with her dog by her side. A notepad, pencil, and pencil sharpener are close by, as is her water bottle.

Published 29th December, 2023.