My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in her forties when we lived in Argentina, and I was in fifth grade. At the time, the malignant, ever-multiplying cells were detected early enough to treat. She engaged in an aggressive chemotherapy war and “beat” the cancer. It was as if her entire body was now a battlefield. The second time around, she wasn’t as lucky.
We had moved to New York City, and along with my father, she was so busy working and trying to save some money for retirement that by the time they detected it again, it had metastasized into what seemed like a death sentence: Stage IV cancer. I was twenty-nine when she gave me and my siblings this news, but Mom held on to life for seven more years despite her diagnosis. “Will it feel cold when death arrives?” she wrote in Spanish in one of her last journals that I found on her bookshelf, near her copy of Susan Sontag’s book Illness as Metaphor (1978). “Will death wear mittens and a jacket when she comes for me?”