FORCES OF NURTURE : I cried, I laughed, I had a mammogram
Posted on Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Sophie was 2 when my friend Larry Lichty invited me to a private reading that his daughter-in-law, Kelly Corrigan, had planned downtown for her book The Middle Place.
Already wildly successful and getting attention from the likes of Oprah, the book is about how Kelly was diagnosed at age 36 and treated for breast cancer while her father battled bladder cancer.
I accepted the invitation and began reading up on the book. The same words kept jumping off the screen as I read reviews online. Kelly was the “mother of two young daughters.” Since I was the 35-year-old mother of a toddler with a grandmother who had been diagnosed with breast cancer earlier that year, the subject matter hit too close to home.
Do not read this book, the panicked voice inside my head shrilled. Reading this book would surely invite my old friend, anxiety, into my life. I would be asking for trouble.
But I’d already accepted the invitation, so I went to hear Kelly.
I was struck by how fantastic she looked with her glossy dark hair and electric smile.
This is a cancer survivor ? I thought.
So against my better judgment, I read her book. In fact, I devoured it. Yes, it was terrifying. And touching. And oddly hysterical. I cried and laughed as I read the entire book over a weekend.
There were passages that ripped me apart — that still make me cry when I look at them. Here, she describes her husband’s thoughts on remarrying and inviting another woman into their daughters’ lives if she died.
“I would be so mad at her because she wouldn’t be... she wouldn’t be you. And I thought that no one could touch those girls, no one deserves them... no one makes them who they are like you do.” Gulp.
Kelly concedes that her book isn’t a traditional feel-good tale.
“To say, ‘I have this great book. It’s about this girl and her dad and they both have cancer at the same time,’ it’s sort of a conversation killer,” she said recently from her home outside San Francisco.
Although having cancer with two small children underfoot offered challenges, Kelly believes her children helped her through the crisis emotionally.
“The more time you have to obsess over your mortality, the worse you’re going to feel,” she says. “It’s not like other problems.... Mortality exists. Your parents are going to die and you’re going to die. Having more time to think about that doesn’t really get you much.” It also helped, she says, that her children were 1 and 3 when she was diagnosed. They were oblivious to her cancer.
“They would walk into a room and bring people to their knees and say, ‘My mommy’s bald because she has cancer !’... It meant nothing to them.” She has always been a busy woman by choice, and cancer brought her normal activities to a halt.
“It was a slow time for us. I was in bed a lot and my kids would just crawl into bed with me and bring a big pile of 10 books. We’d just spend an hour going page by page,” she says. “This is sort of an outrageous thing to say, but it’s something I’m glad to have experienced.” Kelly spent more time with family and her marriage gained strength.
“I know my husband better. He’s a good man. I know it now,” she says. “Anyone can be charming and fun when you’re planning a wedding and a honeymoon. Making babies easily. We hadn’t had a curve ball yet.” What makes Kelly’s book a treasure is that it is reassuring. She survived ! And her little girls thrived while she battled the monster that every woman fears.
For me, the book gave me the kick in the pants I needed to take control of my fears and schedule my first mammogram.
So thanks, Kelly, for writing the book. And thanks, Larry, for making me read it. I hope this column nudges a few moms to do the same.
Kelly, whose book made the New York Times best-seller list, will appear at two Little Rock events this month. She’ll be at the Komen for the Cure pasta dinner on Oct. 10 and the Survivor Lunch the next day. Those interested in learning more about Kelly can go to kellycorrigan. com and circusofcancer. org, a site she created to help people support friends with breast cancer. Cindy Murphy is a news reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She and her husband take turns chasing their toddler, reviving their diabetic cat and trying not to confuse the two. E-mail her at cmurphy@arkansasonline. com
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