Snapshots From My Childhood


When I think of Mom, pictures fill my head like snapshots you keep in an album (or in a box if you're less organized, like me), and take out every so often to smile at and allow to fill you with the memories surrounding the glimpse in time preserved on the photo paper. Sometimes I sift through my mind pictures quickly as I move through my day, because a picture will come to mind as I'm doing something else. And sometimes, when my brain doesn't have to be too engaged in something else, I take the time to look at each picture a little longer, letting my emotions and senses remember how they felt at that time that seems so long ago, yet feels like yesterday.


My mom not only suffered with Hodgkins lymphoma when she was a teenager, but she suffered with breast cancer when I was in first grade, and possibly even part of second grade, partly stemming from the radiation treatments she had as a teenager. I don't know all the details, my mom being as private as she is, but I do know that she had to have chemotherapy and a double-mastectomy (I believe it was called a "radial" mastectomy, and they removed tissue and muscle under and surrounding the area). When I thought about that time in my life, some pictures came to my mind that I have thought about many times, but have rarely allowed to sift through my mind slowly, partially because it is quite difficult for me to think of what could have happened to my mom.


The first picture that always comes to my mind when I think about my mom and breast cancer is me playing out on the grassy soccer field to the west of my elementary school. It is a sunny day, and I am talking to Kaylin Satchwell and one of her friends, talking to her about how I am going to come home with her after school "every day," and then I keep saying that I'm going to come home with her the next year and the next year, and so on, until I realize that I have projected myself all the way to sixth grade, and that my mom isn't going to be sick THAT long, so I stop. Kaylin is older than me (in my mind, she is a sixth grader, but she may have been a little younger), and she is very nice to me, and listens to me prattle on about the games we'll play at her house, and all the things we'll do, and she kindly replies, even excitedly, about the fun we'll have. She walks home from school with me, and she tells me not to listen to the kids who try to sing the "Kindergarten Baby" song, even though I am in first grade.


That picture reminds me of other pictures. One of them is of staying at the Carlile's house all day because it's a school holiday. We have stayed at their house after school before, but there is no school today. It is a very windy day, one of many. It is so windy that my dad has had to prop up the two big trees in front of our house with large boards so they won't tip over like the Smyth's trees did down on the corner. I remember going to the hardware store with Brother Carlile in his little blue Toyota truck with the shell on the back, and the truck leans a little bit as the wind whistles and gusts under it. It is a little frightening, and we wait until the wind calms a bit before we get out. In the Carlile's backyard, the tall poplar trees lean so far over in the wind. The power keeps going out so I cannot watch Sesame Street. I play with Lincoln Logs. My dad comes to pick me up as the sun gets lower in the sky. (My sisters were probably there, too, but I don't remember them being there.) For some reason, in my memory, I don't remember the wind feeling strong; in fact, I don't feel any wind at all, even though I can see the trees thrashing around in the wind. It is strange what memories hold.


I also see a picture of me and my sisters eating hot dogs at the Bradford's house. I have canker sores on my tongue, and I keep sucking air into my mouth to "cool" them because everything hurts my mouth. The Bradford girls eat with us. We play together. One day, Sister Bradford makes a yummy "orange julius."


I remember staying with Porter family in the summer. Lane is my age, and he loves to tease. He tells me how he tricked Michael Terrill into drinking "homemade lemonade," and how Michael threw up and ran home crying. I think it's funny, but I also feel bad for Michael, and a little cautious myself. Kim, the daughter that's a few years older than me, asks me if I like the music group Twisted Sister. Wanting to be liked by such a funny, cool older person, I say that I "like her." Kim laughs and tells me that Twisted Sister is a singing group with men in it. But, teasing aside, Kim still plays with me and helps me and my sisters play in their above-ground pool, which is so fun. Sister Porter makes chocolate chip cookies that I can still smell. Lane tells me his mom is his grandma, and I'm not sure if I believe him, but she does seem kind of like one, in my six-year-old mind.


When the Knights watch us at their house, we eat Spaghettios and white bread for lunch. Kristin gets her head stuck between the poles in the stair railing, and Karen, one of the daughters, cries, "Mom, the baby's got her head stuck!" I wonder why she thinks my sister's a baby--she's two and can walk. I also think they must care a lot about us because of the way Karen talks.


There are many more pictures in my head, pictures of neighbors who took me and my sisters into their homes until my dad could come and get us after work. But, of course, these pictures remind me of other pictures--pictures that reveal the reason we needed to go to other people's homes to be cared for. These pictures are not as happy, so I tend not to spend much time looking at them. But I treasure them, because they are reminders of the great person my mom is, and what she went through. And each time I look at them as an adult, I look at them through the eyes of greater understanding, because I now understand (not entirely, but better) how truly difficult it must have been for her to try to be a mom and go through cancer and treatments. It must have been so hard for her to feel horrible and worry about still fulfilling her roles as a wife and mother. She must have had so many worries, worries besides her cancer and the mounting medical bills. Were we getting enough love and attention? Were we going to suffer with traumatic memories? Could she be the kind of mom we needed? What if she died? What would happen to us? How would she feel watching us grow up from the next world?


I remember going to a doctor's office in Salt Lake City. I don't know how many times we went to the office with my mom, but just one picture comes to my mind. We go into a white room. There are cabinets and a counter along one wall. An examination table sits in the middle of the room, parallel to the cabinets. My mom lays on this table and someone gives her some kind of shot. I don't like shots, so it bothers me. But I like going to Salt Lake in the car. Another picture comes to mind. I am playing in the living room. My mom is laying on our couch, her head propped up on one of the arms. She is facing the window. My mom is wearing a blue handkerchief on her head. I run behind the side of the couch, my arm bumping and brushing my mom's hair and head. I do this several times. I play with the handkerchief and my mom's hair. My mom keeps letting me do this.


I see pictures of eating food that someone else has made for us. I remember eating a pot pie. We have never really had that before, so it is new and I am not sure if I like it. I say so. My dad calmly tells me that Sister Winegar was so nice to make this food for us, and asks if I would like him to tell her that I said I didn't like it. I say no, and I eat the pie without complaint. I decide that it's really not so bad, just not what we usually have.


Pictures of harder days fill my head. I remember going to see my mom in the hospital. I am wearing a red and white dress. I miss my mom, and I am anxious to see her. When we come into the room, my mom is laying in a hospital bed, and she looks sick and thin and helpless. Above my mom's bed hangs a chain with a triangle, and my mom shows us how she needs it to help herself out of bed, but she can't really lift herself very well. After a little while, a nurse comes in and announces that it's time for Mom to have her dinner. We will have to go. I don't want to go. We haven't been there very long, and I don't want to go back home without my mom. I watch as the nurse helps my mom out of the bed and helps her sit down in front of a hospital tray. My mom looks too sick to eat the food, but she tries to put on a brave face and show us that she can eat the food. My dad tells us it's time to go, and at this point, I lose it. I start to cry and wail for my mom, and I hang from my dad's hand and won't move my feet to walk out of the room. My dad finally leads me and my sisters out of the room and down the hall, and I cry all the way.


And then I see a picture of another sad day. My parents had recently seen the movie Yentl, and they loved the music so much that my dad bought the record. My dad puts on the record on this day, and he goes into the bedroom where my mom is lying in bed again. I stay in the living room and listen to the plaintive music, and it fills my heart until I begin to sob. My fears and my love for my mother overflow with the tears that course down my face. I am so afraid that my mom will die. I love her! I don't want her to die. I don't want her to leave me. I don't know what I will do without my mom. I cry until the music stops, and I hope nobody will see me crying in the living room, sitting on the arm of the couch, the same arm my mom rests on, with the green velvet pillow clutched in my arms.


Then a picture of Christmas comes to my mind. It is not Christmas Day, just the Christmas season. It is evening. My mom is laying on the couch. The doorbell rings. I open the door to find people from our neighborhood standing on our porch and in our yard. They begin to sing Christmas carols, hymns filled with hope and joy and peace. I don't know what to do, I am so excited and bewildered to find all these people singing to us. My dad comes to hold open the door so my mom can hear the love they sing for us. I feel God's love through these good, wonderful neighbors, and His and their love fills our home and our hearts.


One day, a sunnier day, a green house plant arrives. It is a big one, and very pretty, with shiny leaves. It is from Aunt Peg, my mom's sister. It looks very nice in our house, and it is so alive. I like to touch it and feel the smooth leaves and smell its house plant smell, and the smell of the dirt it sits in. I like to water it, and I yell if Kristin tries to pull leaves off of it--never mind that I tried that a few times myself. My mom tries to teach us to treat it nicely. And she teaches us to dust it, wetting a cotton ball, dipping it in some water, and carefully wiping each leaf until it shines. I like to dust the leaves. I like watching the dull green of the dusty leaves disappear with the swipe of my damp cotton ball and turn to the deep, shiny green of a newly clean leaf. And as the months go by, the feelings of fear and anxiety gradually leave and are replaced by hope and peace as my mom gets stronger and stronger. And the plant lives for a long time, but not as long as my mom.