The Potty Mouth Granny

Earlier this year, I learned that I had a mass in my right breast and had to have an immediate following mammogram. When I received the abnormal results, I put it away in the part of the brain where you put information that you’re not ready to deal with but late at night, I would think about it and brood.

The day of the second mammogram, I sat on that table trying to hold myself together. Out of nowhere, a memory rose up — that old commercial from the Cancer Centers of America that used to run in Chicago back in the late nineties. I hadn’t thought about it in years. But there it was, clear as yesterday: that woman on the screen, the moment she heard the word “cancer,” and how her first thought wasn’t about herself at all. It was about her children. “What is going to happen to my babies?” she said. And every time I saw that commercial back then, I cried.

So sitting there in that cold room, wearing a thin paper gown and a brave face that was losing its glue, I felt her words hit me all over again. This time, harder. This time, pointed at me. My chest cracked open and I broke down, quietly at first, then fully — crying until my tee shirt clung to me, soaked with fear I couldn’t hide anymore.

I thought about my children and grandchildren. Because even though my children are grown, they still need their mama. That doesn’t end just because they’re taller now, just because they pay their own bills and carry their own heartbreaks. And my grandbabies… they need me too. They need my stories, my hugs, my presence, my voice calling them by the nicknames only I use. The thought of leaving all that behind felt like the earth shifting under my feet.

Fortunately for me, the results came back normal. No cancer. No dark prognosis. No countdown pressed into my hands. I was fine — more than fine — and I felt my whole spirit exhale in a way I didn’t even know it was holding. And on this Thanksgiving, I’m giving thanks with both hands open. Thanks for mercy. Thanks for time. Thanks for the chance to keep being Mama, to keep being Grandma, to keep loving and living in this body that has carried me through every storm. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. The old gray mare is still around to tell her story.