race for the cure

when i was six, my mom's best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. it is difficult to describe here the sort of relationship we had with one another. to say that she raised my sister and me would do my own mother a great disservice. they lived next door to us (in not one but two different neighborhoods). if my sister hogged the shower, it was not at all unusual for me to run next door in a towel and hop into theirs. she had two boys--my brothers from another mother--and a passionate relationship with her husband.

while connie was supposed to survive only a matter of months, she lived six years. a full, well-traveled, well-loved six years. but if those years were a blessing--and of course they were--they were also extremely difficult. i spent a lot of time trying to impress her in those final years, but also trying to stay out of her way. her final months were spent with a tank of oxygen attached to her and while, at the time, we joked about the clink-clink awkwardness of the tank over deck or porch planks, the injustice of it all seemed rank. even to a twelve year-old.

that final autumn, connie and i sat at the foot of her staircase and watched hundreds of ladybugs attempt to invade the windows and doorframes. perhaps they don't do this where you're from. but i wondered, then, why the tiny and beautiful bugs would go to all that trouble only to die right there on the inside sill. i must have, stupidly, said that aloud at some point to connie. and when she died, she left for me a tiny ladybug pen.

i say all this because, no doubt and unfortunately, you too have a similar story. and while this grief has shaped my life, and her illness as much as her spirit also shaped my life, it is a shame that we own such stories, and by the thousands.

susan g. komen's race for the cure is being held in greenville this saturday, september 27th. if you live in wilmington (i think), the race is october 17th. if you can't run a 5k or if you don't want to wear pink, then you're a f-ing pansy in my book. please give in any way that you can--if not with money, than with your time. please contact me directly for more information (my friend julia's even hosting a raffle!). mamiemorgan@gmail.com