I was 9. I sat in the technician room of the Oncology center, and smiled.
For just under a year my mom had been battling stage 3c breast cancer. It had spread to lymph nodes but not to organs; the five-year survival rate was 50 percent.
I had watched her hold my dad’s hand until her knuckles were white while she told my sister and I the news. I had watched her open card after card from people I had never heard of. I had watched my dad hesitate before taking a razor to her hair to finish the job chemo had started. And through all of this, I had watched her smile.
She was almost done. It was finally her last day of radiation treatment. Every morning for weeks she would give me a kiss and tell me to have a good day at school, then she would hand me my lunch and promise to pick me up. Then my grandma would come to get me on the bus as she pulled away, smiling at me, every single day. Except that morning. After weeks of watching her leave, that day she held my hand as we walked out the door. There was no lunch, there was no school, and there was no grandma. I pulled away with her.
It was a long drive and to be honest, I don’t remember most of it. The usual pop radio station played and my hands were sweaty as I gripped the edge of the tan leather seat that I didn’t even fill up. Nothing mattered but the destination. She was almost done. She was going to be OK.
When we got there, I was utterly overwhelmed. There were people who looked like they were on their deathbed, with hunched shoulders and empty eyes. They dragged their feet and forced small talk with the nurses trying so hard to lighten the mood. Then there was my mom. Smiling at me as she went through the routine she had become so accustomed to, standing tall and making jokes. With her hospital gown on and head bare, we headed back to the treatment room. We parted ways as I went into the technician room and she crawled into the mouth of the seemingly monstrous machine. The two technicians talked to me as anyone would to a 9-year-old, as if none of this was happening. The girl was sweet, with her long brown ponytail and soft eyes, worn from seeing so much pain but with a glint from seeing so much healing. Her name was Sarah. She asked me if I wanted to run the machine.
I said yes with nothing but a shocked, and slightly terrified nod.
She took me by the hand gently and I trailed a step behind her into the radiation room. There laid my mom, calm as could be, still with a smile on her face. Sarah showed me what buttons to press and the machine roared to life, the table moved, taking my mom with it into the beast. Sarah smiled at me and I knew it was finally the end. So I smiled back.
The treatment ended and I met mom in the waiting room where we started. She came back like she promised me every time. The treatment was done, her battle wasn't quite over yet but this stage was behind us. She smiled the whole way through. She could have surrendered and let the numbers consume her, let the statistics dictate her attitude. But she was my mom, she was a fighter, she was a smiler. And the smilers survive.
