Five days before Thanksgiving break, Betsy Maguire, a hometown friend who also attended Bowling Green State University, visited my dorm room. She plopped into the chair next to me and asked in a somber voice, "How's your mom?"

"Fine," I laughed, "How's yours?"

Betsy looked puzzled. "Karen, is she still in the hospital?"

"Wha ... what are you talking about?" I gasped.

"I talked to my mom today," Betsy answered, "She saw your dad and he said your mom is in the hospital." She leaned close to me and added, "with cancer."

I jumped from my chair and dialed the phone before Betsy realized she had delivered unknown news. "Damn my parents," I thought, "They never tell me anything." My twelve-year-old sister Maureen answered on the fourth ring.

"Where's Mom?" I demanded, "Is she sick? Where's Dad?" My panic scared her.

"Dad, get on the phone!" Maureen screamed.

As Dad said hello, I fired questions. "What is going on there? Where's Mom?"

"Calm down, calm down," he said, "Maureen, get off the phone."

When she was gone Dad whispered, "I was afraid this might happen."

"What do you mean?" I pleaded, "What is happening? WHERE IS MOM?"

I heard fear in Dad's voice. "Mom is in the hospital having surgery. She has cancer -- breast cancer," he explained. "She's going to have chemotherapy, too." I was stunned. How could this be true? "Your sisters and brothers don't know," Dad continued, "I told them Mom is having varicose veins removed."

"I'll come home tomorrow," I murmured. "I can miss my classes Friday and Monday. I'll get a bus in the morning." Dad didn't argue.

The next day I left Bowling Green at 11 a.m. and arrived in Pittsburgh at 8 p.m. Four hours by car meant nine hours on a bus. The journey gave me time to worry. Was my Mom going to die? She was 43 years old. How could this be happening? What about my four sisters and four brothers? Who was going to take care of them?

Selfishly, I mourned the loss of my new freedom as well as Mom's illness. I was seventeen and loved living away from home. I believed ten weeks of college made me an adult. "Well, that's over," I reasoned, "I'll quit school and help raise my siblings."

Dad met me at the bus station. I didn't cry until we were in the car. He explained Mom's cancer and diagnosis to me. "I'll come back home," I said between sobs.

"We won't decide now," he advised. "Remember, the kids don't know and I don't want to tell them yet."

Mom was released from the hospital on Monday. Dad brought her home and put her in bed. Over the next few days I nursed her and prepared for the holiday meal. Early Thanksgiving morning a 24-pound bird went into the oven. With frequent visits to Mom's bedside for advice and information, I cooked my first turkey. My sisters helped, and Dad checked on us often. My other siblings watched parades on TV, played board games, and behaved as if everything was normal. They didn't know it wasn't.

We crowded around the dining room table for our feast. Dad said grace, "Thank you for bringing everyone home for this holiday." We bowed our heads. "Thank you for these blessings. Please keep this family safe." I watched as my innocent brothers and sisters eyed the stuffing and potatoes, planning to attack. I stole a look at Mom and saw moist eyes. I thought cooking turkey would be difficult, but the hardest part of Thanksgiving was sharing a secret as serious as cancer.

I returned to school for my term finals and flunked them all. I was home for Christmas break by December tenth, in time for Mom's chemotherapy. The treatments made her weak and nauseous. I held her head while she threw up. I washed her, helped her to the bathroom, rubbed her back, and combed her hair as it fell out in clumps. Role reversal changed our relationship. I was the adult instead of the child.

I found the notebook Mom kept while in the hospital for her mastectomy. She wrote, "I have to beat this cancer. I can't leave Fred alone to raise nine children. I can't let that happen. " Seeing Mom's fears in writing made me cry. Our lives would change, but we didn't know how.

Determined not to succumb to cancer, Mom battled for the next five years. She won a reprieve from 1982 to 1995. This "extra time" as we called it, gave nine children the chance to grow up with a mother. My parents traveled, enjoyed life, had grandchildren and shared seventeen more Thanksgivings.

Mom and I switched roles for the last time when cancer returned in 1995. I was thirty-four years old. Two children, a demanding career and life experience made me better at mothering my mom. Again we discussed her life, accomplishments, children, marriage, and photography career. She worried she could have lived better, but I told her that wasn't true. Mom did a beautiful job with her life.

Every Thanksgiving I am melancholy as I prepare the meal. It reminds me of the first time I cooked a turkey, and how my mother taught me to be an adult.

© 2001 by Karen Favo Walsh

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