When I was 15, my mom went in for her annual mammogram, religiously as she always does. She has always been a stickler about her doctor’s appointments. Considering that her mother and aunt both had breast cancer, her obsession was understandable.

A couple days after the appointment, my mother told me that the doctor found a suspicious lump and needed to run more tests. My mother has always been a worrier but for some reason, her voice and calmness while delivering this news made me feel that it was no big deal. She told methe doctor was taking every precaution and they were just keeping a close eye on her. That was enough for me.

I was a junior in high school and thinking about college, color guard practice and my boyfriend, not about hospitals. I was consumed with my high school life and I was unprepared for how it was all about to change.

My mom sat me down one weekday evening after a long day of school and practice. The test results had come back. Her voice was soft and her words didn’t slip out withher normal ease and animation. Each word seemed to be carefully chosen as if she had practiced this speech. My mom, at the age of 44, had breast cancer.

In my 15-year-old mind, this was the end. I didn’t understand how she could be so calm, but I figured her strength was just for my dad, my older sister, and me.

My mom had always been the emotional one in the family. We teased her for crying during the Lion King, grabbing the tissues at weddings and never saying no out of fear of hurting others’ feelings.  I was taken back that she wasn’t crying when she broke the news. Was it worse than she was letting on? Was it better? I didn’t know what to feel.

The next morning before school started, I met my boyfriend and best friend in hallway at the bench in front of room nine, like we always did. Nobody knew what was going on with my mom, but my best friend’s simple question of “what’s wrong?”  flipped a switch inside of me. My eyes filled with tears and a lump in my throat grew to the size of a baseball in a matter of seconds. I was balling in the middle of the hallway, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t care how I looked to everyone else.

Within a few weeks, I realized everyone was going to find out soon and that I would have to make my peace with it quickly. I was going to have to watch my mom go through radiation, chemotherapy and surgery to have the cancer removed.  My mom was going to need my support and I needed to figure out how to be someone she could rely on, even though she would never ask anything of me.

Over the next couple of months during her radiation and chemotherapy treatments I watched my mom lie in bed or on the couch, paralyzed by the effects of the chemotherapy medication. The day my mom decided to have my sister shave her head, so she wouldn’t have to watch her hair fall out over the next couple of weeks, forced me to realize how serious my mother’s cancer was. I couldn’t watch my sister take away my mother’s hair. When I saw my mom after it was all done, I couldn’t look at her the same way. This woman was not my mom. This woman looked weak and helpless and even though I hated myself for it, it made me uncomfortable to look at her with a bald head. I didn’t want to know this side of her.

I had no starting point of what to do for my mom or how I should react to her. During the week I stayed at school for as long as I could. WhenI was home I used homework as an excuse to stay busy. This was no longer the life I was used to and I had no idea how to be apart of it.

The day my mom went in for surgery, I was forced to face the reality I had been avoiding. My parents went to the hospital around 6 AM, so I woke up to an empty house. My best friend was going to pick me up in a couple hours to take me to the hospital, but I couldn’t sleep any longer. I couldn’t sit still. In what felt like minutes, I cleaned my room, the kitchen and my car. My compulsive stress cleaning took over, because if I stopped for a moment my brain went into overdrive about all the “what ifs” that could happen.

As soon as I arrived at the hospital, I searched for my mom’s room in the chaos of the muted, hospital-pink corridors. I slowly made my way up the hall, not able to keep up a normal pace. I found the room, walked through the door, and saw her covered in needles and medical tape. The nurse at her bedside was busy prepping her for surgery and scribbling vitals on her clipboard.  She still didn’t look worried.  In fact, she smiled when she saw me. I made my way to her and gave her a hug and kiss, careful not to touch the many wires flowing to and from her bed. Even getting ready for surgery, unaware of what might happen, my mom still had her strength. As uncomfortable as I was, I realized that if she could still be strong, then I could too.

In that moment, despite her weakness and vulnerability, my mom wasn’t defeated and I realized I had no excuse to feel defeated either.

In the years following my mom’s battle with cancer, I stepped outside of my teenage bubble. Life was no longer simple and I understood there were more intense stresses in life than my upcoming tournaments and tests. My mom’s health, and the health of my sister and me, became a constant worry. Even though my mom is now cancer free, the chance that my sister or I will likely also get it is a fear that still lingers, but as my mom showed me, I am not helpless.