just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.
James N. McCutcheon
2
A MOTHER’S
COURAGE
A mother’s love perceives no impossibilities.
Paddock
My Mother’s Strength
T he doctors told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.
Wilma Rudolph
When I was just fourteen, I watched my mother age ten years in a sickly green hospital room. It was cancer, and I knew it was bad because although I had seen my mother bear many crosses in her life, I had never seen her face look so drawn, tired and hopeless.
For my mother, though, this cancer was more than another cross to bear. She believed she was watching me, her youngest daughter, die.
Through the glass walls of my hospital room I could see the doctor and my mother. As the young resident started talking, my mother’s head fell back, and tears started streaming down her face. Her arms flailed in despair.
When she walked into my hospital room with the doctor, she looked like she had just been dealt the knockout blow of her life. Her eyes stared pleadingly at the doctor. She wanted me to know—I had that right—but she just couldn’t be the one to tell me.
And when the doctor sat on the side of the bed and put his cold, clammy hand on my arm, I knew I was really, really sick. But it was when I looked over at my mother’s face—which had gone from a youthful, smiling one with dancing eyes to the haggard, lackluster one before me— that I knew I was dying.
It was Hodgkin’s disease. My fourteen-year-old body was riddled with cancerous tumors. The doctor sugarcoated nothing. He told me of the incredible pain I would endure. He told me of the weight I would lose and all the hair that would fall out. The doctors would try to shrink the existing tumors with chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but that was no guarantee. There was the very good chance that I would never turn fifteen.
My head fell back on the pillow, and I closed my eyes. I wanted to shut it all out and run away. When the doctor left the room, I wanted to believe that all the ugliness was walking out the door with him. Maybe, I thought, when I opened my eyes, my mother’s face would look young again, and we could go home and bake one of my infamous lopsided cakes.
Instead, when I opened my eyes, my mother, sitting beside me, took my hand, pursed her lips and said determinedly, “We’ll get through this.”
During my stay at the hospital, my mother arrived in my room every morning and stayed there until the last seconds of the last visiting hour at night. For most of the day no words passed between us except for the occasional, “Pat, you should eat something.” I spent my days staring out of the window while my mother sat and read or watched television. There was absolutely no pressure to talk about the situation. It wasn’t profound words of support and love that entwined our souls. It was simply my mother letting me be.
Three weeks later, on the morning I was to be released from the hospital, my mother brought me my favorite bell-bottom jeans, tie-dyed blouse and earth shoes. Seeing them perked me up like no medication in that entire hospital could. I couldn’t wait to wear them.
My mother drew the curtains, and I, like any other clothes-crazy teenager, dressed with great glee. When I pulled up the jeans and buttoned them, I could tell right away that they were not mine. They couldn’t be, because they fell off the once rounded hips they used to hug so nicely. I was incredulous. In the hospital gown I hadn’t noticed the ravages of illness.
I yelled at my mother as though it was her fault. “You brought the wrong jeans! These are too big!” I screamed.
My mother just walked out of the room and went out to the nurse’s station, returning immediately with two safety pins. “Look,” she said, “it will be all right. All we have to do is pin them up here in the back. Your top will cover them.”
“No, I don’t
James N. McCutcheon
2
A MOTHER’S
COURAGE
A mother’s love perceives no impossibilities.
Paddock
My Mother’s Strength
T he doctors told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.
Wilma Rudolph
When I was just fourteen, I watched my mother age ten years in a sickly green hospital room. It was cancer, and I knew it was bad because although I had seen my mother bear many crosses in her life, I had never seen her face look so drawn, tired and hopeless.
For my mother, though, this cancer was more than another cross to bear. She believed she was watching me, her youngest daughter, die.
Through the glass walls of my hospital room I could see the doctor and my mother. As the young resident started talking, my mother’s head fell back, and tears started streaming down her face. Her arms flailed in despair.
When she walked into my hospital room with the doctor, she looked like she had just been dealt the knockout blow of her life. Her eyes stared pleadingly at the doctor. She wanted me to know—I had that right—but she just couldn’t be the one to tell me.
And when the doctor sat on the side of the bed and put his cold, clammy hand on my arm, I knew I was really, really sick. But it was when I looked over at my mother’s face—which had gone from a youthful, smiling one with dancing eyes to the haggard, lackluster one before me— that I knew I was dying.
It was Hodgkin’s disease. My fourteen-year-old body was riddled with cancerous tumors. The doctor sugarcoated nothing. He told me of the incredible pain I would endure. He told me of the weight I would lose and all the hair that would fall out. The doctors would try to shrink the existing tumors with chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but that was no guarantee. There was the very good chance that I would never turn fifteen.
My head fell back on the pillow, and I closed my eyes. I wanted to shut it all out and run away. When the doctor left the room, I wanted to believe that all the ugliness was walking out the door with him. Maybe, I thought, when I opened my eyes, my mother’s face would look young again, and we could go home and bake one of my infamous lopsided cakes.
Instead, when I opened my eyes, my mother, sitting beside me, took my hand, pursed her lips and said determinedly, “We’ll get through this.”
During my stay at the hospital, my mother arrived in my room every morning and stayed there until the last seconds of the last visiting hour at night. For most of the day no words passed between us except for the occasional, “Pat, you should eat something.” I spent my days staring out of the window while my mother sat and read or watched television. There was absolutely no pressure to talk about the situation. It wasn’t profound words of support and love that entwined our souls. It was simply my mother letting me be.
Three weeks later, on the morning I was to be released from the hospital, my mother brought me my favorite bell-bottom jeans, tie-dyed blouse and earth shoes. Seeing them perked me up like no medication in that entire hospital could. I couldn’t wait to wear them.
My mother drew the curtains, and I, like any other clothes-crazy teenager, dressed with great glee. When I pulled up the jeans and buttoned them, I could tell right away that they were not mine. They couldn’t be, because they fell off the once rounded hips they used to hug so nicely. I was incredulous. In the hospital gown I hadn’t noticed the ravages of illness.
I yelled at my mother as though it was her fault. “You brought the wrong jeans! These are too big!” I screamed.
My mother just walked out of the room and went out to the nurse’s station, returning immediately with two safety pins. “Look,” she said, “it will be all right. All we have to do is pin them up here in the back. Your top will cover them.”
“No, I don’t
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