My mother, Donna, always told me that whenever times were rough, I would just have to put on my rose colored glasses. She told me my view on life would instantly change for the better. Throughout my middle school years, I would try to go about my life with her advice in my mind, hoping that I would never have to come face to face with reality. I guess all that time I spent hoping did not pay off.

It was a regular February afternoon in my sixth grade english class. Our teacher had given us time to read independently for the last 30 minutes of school before we could go home to all of our family. I decided on The Hunger Games because it gets better after the third time, and also because Josh hutcherson makes my world go round, literally. In a perfect world, I  would want to be able to jump from book to book and alter realities until I found a perfect one that suited me. By the time Peeta and Katniss were on the train heading to  the capital, I was on the bus ride home.

Walking to the doorstep of my home, I noticed an abnormal silence. I did not hear the faint sound of my brother’s television show playing. In fact, I didn't hear any voices at all. I walked in to see my mom sitting at the dining room table, phone clamped to her ear. She seemed calm as always, but the mild concern on her face and the strain of her grip on the phone made me wonder what her phone conversation was about, and why it was bothering her so much.

“Hey sweetie,” she said with her high pitched voice as she returned the house phone to the receiver.. My mom's voice could make anyone smile, because it sounded like true happiness. Today, she sounded as if she was trying to mask something that was not so joyful, to the point where she sounded exhausted and distressed instead of elated and jittery like woman I knew. And I wanted to know what was going on.

“Come over here and sit next to me. We need to have an important conversation.” I did as she said, not knowing that this important conversation would be stored in my head as one of the worst memories of my life. She proceeded to tell me that she went to the doctor this morning to get a check up. I immediately wondered why she would feel it was important to tell me about a normal yearly check up. We get these done every year with the same feedback It is nothing special, so what was so special about it this time? She looked at me with sad but smiling eyes. She looked like she was trying to stay together, while most of her body was telling her to fall apart.
“The doctor checked me, and this time he found something in me.”Found something in her? At this point, my eleven year old mind could only think of a few options as to what a doctor could find.

“Okay mom, you lost me. Tell me what you mean.”

“Well, he told me that i’m sick; with breast cancer.”

This short but important conversation with my mom started a construction of a massive roller coaster in my life, equipt with many twist, turns, and sudden drops. The amusing part is that with my rose colored glasses on, I felt calm. Well, I felt calm but also confused, because I have never had someone so close to me be terminally ill before. I did not know how these things worked, and I did not know what the outcome would be for me, for her, or for her stage three breast cancer, but she kept her voice cheery and I just continued to be calmly confused.

The process that came next in my life forced me to learn things and grow up faster than an 11 year old should. I had to be concerned about the health of my mother and how she would do with the many tests that she needed to get done. No other words accept confusion and acceptance could come to mind when I thought about this time period of my life.

People who know our family would start to treat me in an uneasy way. They knew about the circumstances that we were under, and because of this, they would try to avoid talking about it. The problem with that was that I wanted to talk about it. I wanted someone to feel what I felt and say something that would help me to feel more human. The emotions that I felt needed to be talked out so that I would understand why we were going through this and how we would get out of it.

After a few months of  chemo and other tests, it got to the point where my mother had to get a mastectomy. It was a heartbreaking process, but the result was bitter sweet. It took away her cancer. I wanted our family to be removed of stress and the struggle of trying to shove reality out of the way. For a while, we did. And we were happy. My father’s permanent face of worry was slightly less strained. My brother did not have to ask so many questions. And my mother got a job. Everything was normal Happy ending right? I thought so, but I was sadly mistaken.

Breast cancer can have a recurrence at any time, or not at all, but recurrences are most likely to happen in the first five years of being treated. When my mother’s breast cancer reoccurred, I reached a different stage of emotion. Anger. My eyes were a rosy blaze when I found out. I was angry with the doctors, angry with with myself, even angry with my mother’s body.Why could she not fight off this demon inside of her that was slowly making her disappear? And why would my family have to go through the motions again? Tests, sadness, and hatred was my whole existence.

My mother was the polar opposite of me. She did not allow her sickness to bring her down. She fought with humbling bravery, and I noticed this. I noticed how this illness made her more powerful. She was stronger than anyone else in my family. Throughout this second recurrence, she did not think about herself and how her illness was worsening. She focused on me.

“Honey, go over there! Go make new friends. You just sit in your room anyway.” At a family friend’s house, a new group of teenagers were invited, and my mother was determined to help me make their acquaintance. She was so determined that she proceeded to nudge me into their direction and i was literally forced to say hello. That's what she always did. She nudged me in life. She pushed me to speak up and get what I wanted. She pushed me to be more vocal and bright. She wanted me to enjoy my life for her.

The cycle of recovery, inching toward normalcy, and recurrence occurred one last time. After my mother had once again picked up her job and had started working, my dad started noticing my mother coughing more than normal. My mom, being donna, said that it was probably just a cold. My dad took her to the hospital anyway just to be sure. It turned out that not only had my mother's breast cancer had a recurrence for the third time, but it had also spread to her lungs and her liver, which explained the sort of gurgling cough that she started having. The doctor explained that she did not have long to live. The last stage of emotion for me was denial. I had been through this before. Everything was going to be fine and my mom would be fine. We were fine. By this time, my whole family had found their own pair of rose colored  glasses, and were always wearing them. We all knew what would happen soon, but we ignored it as if this was an everyday event.

The hospital sent my mother home, not because she was okay, but because there was nothing else that could be done for my mom but to keep her as comfortable as possible, and surround her with friends and family. We set up a hospital bed for her in the living room and kept a simple routine for her. We would all play games with her and watch movies. We would laugh and have so many visitors. She smiled through every day of her torture. She was indifferent, she was unbothered. Blasé.

By the fourth day of being home, she was unable to talk. However, this did not stop her from speaking with her actions and her eyes. She had developed a yellow tint to her eyes, Jaundice, and she was frail and physically weak, but she did not let anyone try to help her. She wanted to do things on her own, she did not want to accept her reality. I continued, like everyone else in my family, to avoid the obvious situation in front of me. I was mentally blinded, I was distracted by the rosey belief that we were all okay.

On the fifth day of my mother being home, i decided to stay home with her. My father was in his room watching television, and my brother stayed in his room , playing some video game. A nurse came over to give my mother oxygen. After the nurse left, my mother began to hiccup.

I went upstairs to tell my dad.

“Dad?” I muttered. “ Mom’s doing some weird hiccuping thing.” He returned my unbothered gaze with a panic-stricken one. At this point, his rose colored glasses were removed and he went downstairs. As I returned back to my mom I saw my dad massaging her hand and speaking to her softly in her ear. My eyes roamed from her delicate figure, to  her pale face and sunny eyes, to her naked head. All I could think of was how unbelievably beautiful she was. I moved to lay with her on her hospital bed. She looked as if she was trying to say so much, but suddenly she peered up at the ceiling. She did not look joyful. For the first time since this illness had taken over her, she looked petrified. She did not want to leave this beautiful earth. She was not ready to go.

I knew what i had to do. I had to say the hardest things that had ever left my mouth. I finally removed my rose colored glasses and uttered:

“ It’s okay, mommy. Rest, close your eyes. You can let go.”

Donna Dulaney passed away on November 7th, 2014. She closed her eyes with a content smile smoothed on her face. I can easily say that she was the bravest person I knew. She never showed her pain. Although she was weak and could not walk or talk,  she continued to smile. This shows me that as an able bodied person who has all the abilities that she did not have, I have no excuse to not smile and brighten someone else's day. My mom would have wanted that. I always saw advertisements about breast cancer awareness on the television, but I did not understand the importance, or care about awareness until I was faced with losing my mother. It opened my eyes to so much in the world, as did she. And I thank her for that every day. Although this was the worst experience of my life. It taught me a lesson. Reality strikes at any time and I have to be ready. I have to face it and not run away from it, because it is something I cannot change. I also learned from my beautiful Donna to keep on smiling, no matter the pain.