We Are Normal

It was a hot morning and my mom was driving me to school. The road in front of us rippling with heat, the sticky melted pavement was scattered across the road. We had the AC was blasting, it was blowing directly in my face, causing my eyes to water.  I reached over to divert it into another course, remembering that my mom had gone to a doctor's appointment the day before. When I asked her how it went she brushed it off saying it was nothing. When my mom is lying, she never looks straight at me and talks fast and loud, like she is avoiding answering.  I can always tell.

I didn't think anything of and continued to float through the next few weeks as I ordinarily would. Doing homework and exams. Playing volleyball and hanging out with my friends. Until one evening during dinner, my mom sat my sister and me down. She said she had something to tell us. It was like a thick fog had settled over the dinner table. A familiar feeling came over me. The same feeling I had when my mom told me her doctor's appointment was nothing. My dad went silent, both my sister and I knew something was about to change. She told us that she was sick. Her doctor's appointment hadn't actually been a checkup. She had breast cancer. My sister sobbed, wet tears running down her face. Suddenly a dark shadow was looking over my shoulder but I wasn’t able to get close enough to see the shape of it. I was looking at everything from a distance now, watching my mom tell us that everything would be okay and that she would be fine from above, though not fully listening. 

I now floated through the week, my family got a new normal. My grandma would stay with us for long periods, sleeping on the understuffed strawberry red couch that groaned when you sat on it. She would help us with things that my sister and I never could have done and things my dad wasn't around to be able to do. Different people's moms would pick me up from volleyball and sometimes school. I would make my mom cards for her to take to chemo and to wake up after surgery. Splashes of color and jokes danced across the paper. 

The last day of my mom’s chemo was unforgettable. It was my first time visiting the place my mom was getting treatment. It was a white room filled with La-Z-Boys and IVs. People who were going through the same thing as my mom sat in these chairs, their loved ones gathered around. My sister and I were never allowed or able to go to her chemos until now. It was always during school and when I could go she didn’t want me to get worried. The company that she was getting chemo at had a bell you would ring when it was your last chemo. The bell was rusted on the top the bronze peeking through on the bottom. There was a browned rope, worn from people ringing it hanging from the bell. A nurse came over to my family with a giant box of round confetti and glitter. The confetti was all different shades of blue and green in all the colors of the rainbow. She told us to grab a handful to throw on my mom when she rang the bell. The confetti felt soft and fluffy in my hand it put my other hand on top to make sure it didn’t seep out. My mom walked over to the bell and rang it ... hard. We threw the confetti all over her. It flew through the air sailing down to the floor slowly, an explosion of color. My grandparents and my dad cried even the nurse started crying. My mom started balling, tears running down, a gigantic weight had been lifted off her chest and I felt it too. Everyone in the room started cheering. 

Even now, with one surgery left, I know that everything will be okay. I have a whole family supporting me and going through the same thing. I am proud to say that my mom is a breast cancer survivor.