A bump in the road

We had been talking for almost half an hour about trivial things when she finally mentioned it. "So I have to tell you," she said. "I have another lump in my breast."

The last time we had this conversation was 11 years ago. I was just out of college, just starting my life, and just about the age my mom had been when she'd lost her own mother. The lump turned out to be benign, but not before some sleepless nights spent worrying, thinking about what I could lose and what she could miss. I've thought of that near miss many times over the past 11 years... at my wedding when she walked me down the aisle with my Dad, when each of my children were born and she came to take care of all of us, and on countless other random days that were important only because they weren't actually important at all except for the fact that she was there, healthy. And now here we are again.

"My doctor wants the lump out, but he thinks it's most likely benign again," she told me today. "Are you nervous?" I asked. "Yes and no. They told Rowena there was like a 2% chance that what she had would get her, too. You just never know."

You just never know.