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As far as Nora knew, her mother always had breast cancer. Her family included an older sister, mother and father. The whole family was active in the local Catholic church. The girls attended Catholic school, and were active in Girl Scouts. Her father was a stern disciplinarian, and an alcoholic. Nora has vague memories of her mother’s treatments, from overhearing grown-ups comments, and a few memories, like the time she picked up her mother’s prosthesis, knowing what it was, and later, feeling “mortified”. She never noticed that her mother was different from other children’s mothers. She spent a lot of time sitting by mother’s bed, talking or coloring. When Nora was nine, her mother died, which was not anticipated, or even imagined, by Nora. One day, she and her sister came home from school to find the priest and the neighbors at the house. She knew that something had happened, but did not know what it meant when the priest told them that their mother had “passed away”. Nora thought her mother might have done something wrong, but when she saw her aunt crying in the kitchen (trying to hide her emotion from the children), she realized what had happened. Later, she saw her mother’s body being carried out of the house – a traumatic memory. During the week before the funeral, Nora remembers thinking that her mother was still alive. (“I can see her eyes move. She blinked.”) After the funeral, the family did not visit mother’s grave, or conduct any other mourning rituals. “We never spoke her name.” Her father got rid of all of mother’s things. (Nora does not know what happened to her things, and as an adult, would love to have some mementos.) Nora and her sister were ashamed of being the only kids from a single parent home in their school. They hid this information from the other children, and from their teachers. There was virtually no supervision from her father. Nora was grateful that their school had uniforms, because if not, she would have had nothing to wear. “When I got bigger than my sister, I had no clothes that fit me.” At 13, she got a job so that she could buy her own things. Her father’s drinking increased, and by age 11, Nora too began drinking. She started to hang out with a group of kids who used to break into homes and steal liquor. That same year, Nora was sexually assaulted by a 16-year-old boy. She and her father fought continuously, and after he remarried, she was kicked out of the house. She got a job, and supported herself through college. Nora has had three serious episodes of depression. During treatment for one of these, she realized that she had never dealt with her mother’s illness and death. She now recognizes how angry she was as a child, and even now, she gets angry when someone tries to “mother” her. She is proud of her strength and her independence. At the time of her interviews for the book Breast Cancer: Daughters Tell Their Stories, she was 37 years old, married, with two children. She worked as a counselor in a mental health center. Nora’s sister works for a cancer organization. She is now interested in talking with relatives, and learning more about her mother “as a person”. Other cases of children: In the book, you can find about more about Nora’s story, in her own words. You can also learn about other young girls who lost their mothers to breast cancer. For example, Rita was five at mother’s diagnosis and eight when her mother died. She had a period of unsupervised childhood after mother died, which she loved. Then, when her father remarried a woman she didn’t like, she made her house into a war zone, and spent most of her time with a friend’s family. She moved out the minute she turned eighteen. Now, as an adult, she is very fearful of getting cancer herself, and has not married or had children for this reason. The book Breast Cancer: Daughters Tell Their Stories also includes a case study of “Carol”. Carol was also five at mother’s diagnosis, and eight at her death. She came from a large family, and remembers enjoying having time alone with mother when her siblings were in school. She remembers the day her mother died, and has traumatic memories of seeing mother’s mastectomy scar, and seeing mother’s body being carried out of the house. Father remarried within several months, to a friend of the family who also had lots of children. She never had time to grieve, because she had to adapt to living in a new family structure. Her stepmother tried hard to make the children happy, and Carol did not express her grief until after she had left home. Then, she was able to find out the date mother died and where she was buried. As an adult, she has suffered depression, trouble with transitions, and with intimate relationships. She expects to die at the same age as her mother (31 years). |