Never in a million years would I have expected anything like it to happen, but it did. I can still recall microscopic details of that day, as if it was just yesterday, a day in my life that will always stand out, no matter how hard I try to disillusion my mind it will always remain permanent. It was after one faithful church service on a Sunday, when I was sitting at our kitchen table eating lunch. My parents were hiding something, something that they did not want my brother and I to know. I wanted to know so desperately, although after they told us I decided I wished I had not acknowledged those horrific words at all: mom had cancer.

To a seven-year-old those words can have multiple meanings; to me it only had one. Mommy may not live. I sat there in my mute state of being for the longest time, because quite frankly I did not know what was happening, it seemed as if time itself was frozen to the icy, hard care of the truth that rang freshly in my mind. The irony of the situation seemed so cruel, seeing as how we had just gone to church not long before, and here God was playing a nasty joke on us, except the reality of it was that it was not a joke at all. I blamed God for my mom’s illness, because all my life I had been told that God had a plan for everyone and a reason for doing everything, and well right that second I felt as if God had deceived me. I knew at the time that it was morally wrong to be thinking things such as that; however, I felt that I had a legitimate reason to be angry, so angry that it shook me to the depths of my soul.

My mom though, had a different outlook at the dreadful obstacle facing her; she was going to fight with all of her might because her life was something that no one could ever take from her. She had the drive and determination of no one I had ever known. I watched in despair as she shaved her head and lost her fingernails and toenails. In my eyes it was as if I was losing a portion of my mom, of my hope for a cure; yet, to her it was just hair, hair that would grow back. The next few months were critical, while we waited to see if the chemo and radiation would do their job and heal my mom. When she came home from treatments she would reside to her bed for the duration of the day, and the next day, and the next. On some days it would be as if things were ordinary and there were other days were Mom could not even swallow her own saliva. I was still caught up in a wrath with God. There was absolutely no way I could understand why. As the days carried on I got more infuriated with Him.

After a few months had past our hope soared, due to Mom’s progress. Little by little she was starting to heal, yet the end was still out of arms reach. Mom would not officially be cured until five years after her treatments ended; that was a long way off, however, there was still hope for my mom after all. When Mom ended treatments we were all anxious to see how everything turned out. Five years later my mom was officially cured from her threat. God and I came to a truce; I finally understood His intentions after all, and yes His motives were crystal clear to me then. God may have allowed my mom to become sick, but at the same time He gave her the ambition, the courage, the bravery, and the boldness to confront her disease in order for her to survive.

Looking back on it all now, I realize how much I admire my mother and how much I continue to strive to be just like her. She had a song she listened to when she was sick, a song that encouraged her. “Don’t give up; you’ve got a reason to live.” That was, and still is today, her favorite quote of all time from that song. She always said that her reason to live was her kids; that we were and always will be her heart and soul, her key to life, and without us she would never make it. I have never known anyone who opens up their heart so much and loves so freely and openly as my mother does. She has no idea how much admiration I have for her. She’s taught me to never give up, to always keep going on. My mom has shown me how to love and trust in who I am and what I am capable of, just as she trusted in herself to find the strength to overcome her obstacle.