What Made Me Brave

When life gives you lemons you make lemonade. But what if those lemons are too bitter to make sweet lemonade? I had received one of these bitter lemons. In fifth grade I came home after a wonderful day at school, and my mom told me she had stage four breast cancer. The first thing my little fifth grade mind thought of was is my mom gonna die? Which is a real concern when these kind of things occur. So later that night we got an electric razor and my dad shaved her hair. This was probably one of the hardest things he had to do. The next day I went to school and my teacher could automatically tell something was wrong because I wasn't being my cheerful happy go lucky self. After school my teacher came up to me and asked if everything was alright and I said yes. I didn't want anyone to know what i was going through.

My teacher didn’t believe me so she emailed my mom and asked. My mom told her the truth. The next day I had a meeting with the school's counselor. She was nice and gentle and truly wanted to help but I didn’t want help. I wanted to be left alone to deal with the situation my way. Me and the counselor came to the end of our discussion and she said that I could stop by whenever I needed help. I never saw her again. After the meeting with the counselor I told myself “act happier” so I wouldn’t get sent there again. My plan worked I was playing and interacting with the other kids like nothing ever happened. So during the school day I totally escaped from the fact that my mom was sick. But after school was a whole different story.

In the beginning stages of chemo my mom was still my mom. She was walking around, cooking, cleaning and playing with the kids. But after a few more treatments I would come home and mom wouldn’t be walking around it was grandma who would be constantly be running up and down the stairs getting things for my mom and us kids. After a while I wouldn’t come home. I would drop off my back pack and go play with my friends at the park. My only friend who knew what was going on was my best friend Yvonne. Her and her family were truly the ones who helped me through this the most. They helped me forget my mom was sick and made me smile and laugh every single day. As my mom got weaker she wanted to do something with the family that would be big and memorable just in case if she passed away. And so she did.

My mom loved calling radio stations to try and win the big cash prize or the concert tickets. But the one she wanted the most was the Disney trip. Her and my older sister would go downstairs and get on the two computers log in and try to find Mickey in the disney map. They would do this twice a day and on the last day they stayed up till ten thirty at night and entered non stop. A few days later my dad gets a phone call and it's a guy calling and saying that he was a state official and that our water gage was broken and needed fixing. The man asked to speak to my mom and he said the same thing to her and then we heard a woman's voice in the background saying stop being so mean. The man was the radio host and my mom won the Disney trip. The trip was for four people to go to Disneyland but we had seven people living at home at the time so my grandma got four more tickets for the rest of the family and she came with us. It was the best Disney trip ever. My mom had to ride around in a wheelchair so we got to cut in front of everyone and go on all the rides without having to wait an hour. And it seemed like the cancer stayed in Utah while we were having fun in California. Soon our trip ended and we had to return home.

My mom went through a ton of chemo and radiation which made her ill. During this whole thing my mom was the Relief Society President which is a huge church calling. They are in charge of making sure everyone is alright and well in the church. You can imagine how hard this can be when you're the one who probably needs this help more than everyone else. And the ward realized this so they took care of her instead of her taking care of them. Everyday someone would come and give my mom a gift and visit with her and made sure her children were being feed. One lady made her a doll and another woman came and gave her a pedicure. She was treated like a princess. But soon all of that would end because she had to go into surgery.

We drove her to orem Ut and by twelve o'clock she was under and in surgery. I got checked out of school to see her when she came out of surgery. It took forever so I went to the gift shop and decided to get her something special. I found this girl statue holding a bundle of flowers and it reminded me of a time when I picked her some flowers and gave them to her. I bought the statue and once my mom came out of surgery and woke up I gave her the statue. She loved it to the moon and back she said it was the best part of her day. That statue is still around and is put somewhere where everyone can see.

During this whole process my mom always showed bravery. She smiled and laughed during the hardest times. She never lost sight of what was important. Family she knew that without them she wouldn't of been able to make it through all the pain. She said whenever she saw one of her children smile it made her better. I learned that even though you feel alone someone is always there to help. My mom Helped me realized this and I'm forever grateful for her strong example.