But now I see my tattoos say the very same thing my old friend’s does–Life Is Not Neat. Stuff happens. Cancer happened–to me.  And when the going got tough I had to grab my broom and start sweeping. I’m still sweeping today.

And so far I’ve found that if I sweep it up the right way, hold on tightly to my broom and keep up with people who make me smile, laugh, and hope–especially old friends with 49 tattoos, then life for this young breast cancer survivor, whether neat or not, is well worth it.

It was my choice to not reconstruct my breasts after my double mastectomy for breast cancer. My husband, when faced with the your-wife-or-her-breasts choice said simply, “Let them go, I want you healthy.”  So I let them go, and all they represented went with them–femininity, sexiness, beauty, not to mention cute clothing choices. I mean, navel-plunging necklines aren’t meant to expose actual navels.  So in between searching for shirts that don’t make me look like a twelve year old boy and tossing the unopened Victoria’s Secret catalog in the recycle bin, I’ve been searching for the true meaning of beauty.  And against all I’d ever believed growing up, I’ve found that real beauty has nothing to do with my chest.  It has to do with everything but–like my laugh (ask my kids), or my smile, (ask my mother) and my kindness (ask my BFFs), and in those cute pants that show off my backside (just ask my husband.) And it has to do with fighting cancer–and so far beating it–and being grateful that I still get to be here to teach my first grader how to tie her shoes.  I thought my femininity, sexiness and beauty rested in the two curves about my navel and the size 34B bras I once owned.  But according to the film festival crowd I spoke in front of last month, and my kids and my friends and all that life is showing me now, beauty really belongs in choices–to be who you are as you are–and to not be afraid to show it.

Six years ago today I stood in a backyard on a sunny day hugging my son so tightly he might have lost his breath. I released him in enough time for him to run down the hill and chase a ball that his 5 year old self desperately wanted to play with–carefree and happy in the knowledge that I was still with him, having just been diagnosed with breast cancer.  What followed was a painful year of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation but we did it–we all did it–my family and I made it to the next Mother’s Day, and the next, and the next and well…here we are.

This morning I hugged that same little boy, now on the threshold of the tween years, before he ran to grab a super-sized styrofoam airplane he desperately wanted to throw in the field.  My cancer is still something my kids, husband and I all think about,  but for the most part we are carefree and happy in the knowledge that while it did take me down breast cancer did not take me out.  I am still here.  I am still a mother to my children.  I still get to open my eyes and see the faces of these little people so desperate to please me on a day like today.  That’s why when they ask me what I want for this big holiday I tell them I already got it.

I got to be here today. That is what I wanted.  And it’s what I hope I’ll always get for Mother’s Day.

I was putting my daughter’s hair in pony tails this morning wondering how many wonderful people do we have to lose to this disease before we get so ticked off we buckle down and figure it out?  And I don’t just mean a cure to breast cancer, though I’ll dance in the streets and pass out fake cigars when that happens.  I mean a cause.  Why in the world are we getting this disease and what are we doing in this world to cause it?  Is it the food, the pollution, the atmosphere, the color of my dress, my shoes too tight, WHAT?  What is going on?

My daughter chose two little pink elastics to put in her hair so I wrapped them around her long blonde locks and began to think.  I love a pink ribbon as much as the next person, but what I’d really like to see out there plastered on every soup can and body lotion and tote bag is a big fat nothing.  As in we solved the problem, there is no more breast cancer.  We don’t need them, we’re not using them, take your ribbons back, we solved the breast cancer problem.

That way we all live the way we’d hoped for before cancer broke in and stole our long and happy lives.  Then people like Lynn Redgrave would still be here.

And we could save the pink ribbons to wrap around the bundled braids of  little girls everywhere, where they belong.

The Breast Cancer Diaries Documentary trailer 2 from The Diaries Film on Vimeo.

So I was sitting in the waiting area and I happened to hear the woman next to me, who was maybe in her 50’s or early 60’s, talking on her cell phone, sounding slightly rattled. I checked her wrist to see if she had a band. That’s how I learned 5 years ago as I sat in that waiting room who else was in my boat. If you had the patient wristband (with your name and birth date on it) you were in my boat. If you didn’t, you were a friend or family member trying to help keep the “boat” afloat.

Within a few moments, the woman’s daughter came into the waiting room and we struck up a conversation. We all decided that cancer stinks and this young girl, a musician and singer-songwriter, is committed to fighting breast cancer in whatever way she can. Her mom has it, and that’s about as close as it gets.

When the nurse called my name to see my doctor, I smiled a goodbye and leaned over to the mother and flashed her my wristband. “Hang in there. I have the wristband too.” And then I added, “Sisterhood.”

Later that night, I emailed this woman’s daughter (she gave me her card) and told her that I got on her website and really liked her music.

Then I wanted to write something to her mom. I wanted to tell her that she is not alone–she is part of the sisterhood that none of us wanted to be in. We are a big group, a varied group, of mothers and daughters who are fighting this thing in our own way, with our treatment plans, our families beside us, and our white paper bracelets. We are a unified, terrified, full-of-pride group of people who must lean on each other any way we can, even in snatches of time stolen in a waiting room full of people.

And then something flashed in my mind: a book I read a few summers ago, the one about the 4 girls who share a pair of jeans and all the adventures they have and the growing they do while encased in these jeans–it was called “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”

But as I sat there writing this email I felt a sisterhood of my own: a sisterhood with this woman’s mother, and all the woman in that waiting room today, and all the women who ever had or have to wear those wristbands and sit in waiting rooms not just in Boston but in Denver and New York and San Francisco and LA, and hear a doctor tell them they must lose their breasts, or a breast, or a piece of their breast, a slice of their womanhood, a defining portion of what makes them appear female.

And how they have to push themselves to make it through, to survive, to grow, to be stronger than the disease, to push back, to thrive, to live.

And I found myself ending my email with: “I hope your mom had a good appointment today. Tell her to hang in there–she is not alone. We are out there with her–

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Wristbands.”

Air date is October 4th.  Ann is busy being interviewed by Latin America media (one of her many assets–she is fluent in Spanish!)

Last year in October The Breast Cancer Diaries was honored to be featured on Discovery Health in the United States.  This year we expand our reach to Latin America.