My Mother, My Hero

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, and to commemorate it, I thought I would share something I wrote in high school.

I was given an assignment in my high school speech class to give a speech about my hero.  The decision was not hard, given what my family had just been through...

I was told to give a speech about my hero today.  It took me awhile to come up with someone that i could write about and really appreciate, but then I realized who I have always admired...More now than I ever have before.  It might sound cliche, but today, I am going to talk about my mother.  I'm not going to talk about her as a parent, though.  I just want to talk about her as a person.


She really is the strongest person I know.  I remember a time a little over a year ago when she sat me and my sister down on the couch and told us she had some important news...She went to the doctor and they found what they thought might be cancer.  She had one night to prepare us and to prepare herself for what might happen.  My sister and I sat there and cried for awhile, but she told us to be strong, because no matter what, she was going to beat it.  The next morning, she left to go to the hospital to have her surgery.  She did not know what to expect when she woke up.  When she got out of surgery, the doctor informed her that he removed her left breast because he did find cancer.  Soon after that, she started chemotherapy, which made her really sick.  I know she felt horrible and weak, but every morning she got herself out of bed, took a shower, got dressed, and put her make up on...even if the most exciting thing she would be doing that day was watch TV on the living room couch.  One day, I came home from school and asked her about this and she said nothing was going to stop her from living her life.


I remember sitting with her at the kitchen table one Saturday morning as she ran her hands through her hair and it started falling out.  That was the first time I saw my mother cry.  She shaved her head and got a wig styled to look good on her and things went back to normal...or at least as normal as they could be in my house at that time.  She still went to most of the football games to see me, went to all of my band concerts, and seemed concerned about how my day went.


After a long year of hard work and a lot of struggling to keep the household running, she was considered in remission. She has now had 5 surgeries with one more to go.  After a year and a half, life is going back to the way it should be.  With this speech coming up, I sat her down the other night and talked about everything that happened.  She told me that she had seen me and my sister through too many hard times and if she did not get to see us graduate, she was not doing her job....and that if she got to see us married, she was truly blessed.


My mom is my hero because she taught me the most important lesson anyone can learn.  No matter what happens in life, you do what you need to to keep going.

This speech was written originally 7 years ago.  My mom has since been considered "cured"-if you can ever truly be cured of cancer is beside the point.  She never did have that last surgery.  She said it was just reconstructive, and really doesn't want to go "under the knife" again if she can help it.  It's all behind us now.

Two-and-a-half years ago, I cried with my mom on my wedding day.  She was there, dancing.  We really weren't sure if she would be there for awhile.

In all honesty, as a high school student, wrapped up in my own drama and my own life, I never realized how bad my mom really got.  How worried I really should have been.  I guess she kept all of that from us to protect us.  Now, as an adult, talking to my Granny, talking to mom, I realize what I close call we avoided back then.

My mom is my hero for all the life lessons she's taught me, and for sticking by me no matter what I decide (even if that decision is to move across the country with her grand baby), and for persevering.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom. You earned it.