- I'm going to speak on the topic of mothers feeling never enough,
and how that never enoughness impacts moms who have breast cancer and children
of moms who have breast cancer because children are also co-survivors.
So when you're a mother and you're a good mother, you never feel enough.
You never think you have enough time, you do enough things. You never feel
like you're there enough and for me, as a single mother running a national charity,
I feel like I'm trying to serve people and serve God, and take care of my
daughter and be at all her games, and make meals on time. I feel like I'm never doing
enough for her and I think it's something that you just get to learn to live with
because I don't feel like I'm ever enough. Except for times when she comes to me
and tells me, "Mommy, you're so wonderful. I love you. You're my best friend." Then,
I know that I am enough. But I will say that there is something that happens when
you have breast cancer to your child and your relationship because my daughter,
even as recent as last night, we're in bed, she was talking,
we were talking, and she worries about me all the time. She worries about me if I
have a cough, if my back hurts, if I sneeze too much, if I'm too tired, and she
made a comment. She talked about the fact that she doesn't want to bother me
sometimes because she thinks that she's being a burden, because she's like,
"You had breast cancer, you had to take care of me, and you have to help all these
people and you're still taking care of me, and you're always working and, you know,
you worry about me. You worry about me being happy and feeding me and cooking
for me." I said, "Why didn't you tell me this before that you felt this way?"
And she said, "I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't want you to think that you
weren't good enough." And I said, "I always do." And I'm always honest
with her and I said, "As a woman and as a mom, you always feel like you could do
more." And I said, "But you are more than enough for me, that me being your mom,
you being my daughter, makes me enough." And I said, "I thank you for telling me
how you feel," because just by talking about, you know, her feelings about her
worrying about me and me maybe having a recurrence, I got to be more sensitized
to what children go through because this little girl was three when I was diagnosed
and she couldn't explain... She didn't understand what fear was.
She didn't understand what...the end of death, of her feelings of me leaving
her some point in time. You know, and she has asked me in the past, "Will you ever
get breast cancer again?" And before, I would say, "Nope. I won't."
But as she's gotten older and she's seen my friends die around me, people that I've
had to give eulogies for or write about in my blogs and I cry over,
she's asked me again and I couldn't lie to her at 12 or 13. And now we're 14,
I certainly can't lie to her. As a mother, when I feel like I'm not enough,
sometimes I tell myself that I'm doing the best that I can. That's all I can do.
And If I don't feel enough, I'm telling my daughter that she should never feel enough
and so I have to try to rephrase that within myself. It's my own insecurity as a
woman, as a human being, because when you have a big heart and you want to empath
and you want to give to the world, you're going to never feel enough.
But that's not the truth. The truth is that women, as a mother,
you are enough. You birth a child. You take care of your children.
You love your children. You feed them. You clothe them. And then as a survivor
of breast cancer, you're more than enough because you're fighting for your life
while caring for a child. And so I would urge you to tell yourself over and over
that you are enough. Tell your children that they're enough and together,
just dialog and share your feelings.
There's no perfect answer, but the true answer for me is continuous connection,
continuous sharing, and always remember to have empathy for yourself and your
children as fellow human beings, and that will be enough.
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