I’ve known the month of September to be a wily foe. Perhaps her cunning is a mere protesting of the confusion that comes with bearing two seasons at once. Still, I haven’t liked her much. It was during her days that I lost my mom to breast cancer 26
Read more →It’s late June, a golden-blue day wrapped in soft, honeyed rustles hinting at untold promises and glories of the summer at hand. My small children are gliding into a friend’s home, their goodbye kisses and laughter floating through tousles of hair. The sparkles fade to dust, swallowed
Read more →My mom died of breast cancer when I was 15. At first, I missed the short-term comforts she brought. No more Chinese-takeout dinners on Friday. No more special trips to Canada or Florida. Soon I missed the lack of love and attention. I grew to believe there
Read more →Kara Tippetts, a wife and young mother, died recently. I didn’t know her. Like many, though, I feel as if I did–from the words she shared in her book, on her blog and in her radio interviews. Tippetts, 38, was a warrior. She lost a battle with
Read more →I don’t have breast cancer. I’ve waited to hear those words for nearly six months, after a suspicious mammogram led to a host of other tests and procedures. Each round of results revealed more about what was causing the abnormalities. Ultimately I discovered that I have two
Read more →Earlier this month I finished my second Avon Walk in Chicago, pounding 39.3 miles of pavement against breast cancer. We were a largely female troop of 2,200, including 276 breast-cancer survivors. Men weren’t absent, though: 329 of them joined our ranks. Together we raised $4.7 million to
Read more →Last weekend I walked my first marathon-and-half, as part of the 2013 Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I trekked in, around and through Chicago. It was exhilarating. I was part of a $5.2 million fundraising effort, a small fish in a big sea of people sweeping the
Read more →My Mom would be 70 years old today. That seems old. I can only picture her as young–probably because she died at 46. In the prime of life, with a full head of thick brown waves, sparkling green eyes and a radiance that suggested she might be
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