By Shirley Adelman
My daughter suffers
for another's suffering.
Shadows of eyebrows
on a mother,
with more tumors
than fingers can count.
Her daughter,
ashamed of suffering,
confides only in mine,
knowing
I was lucky.
Cancer left me left me
with a scarred breast:
tattooed dots,
a frame to radiation,
beamed
so early in the morning,
birds sang their thanks,
for another day.
Previously published in: "Canadian Woman Studies," Women and Cancer, A York University Publication, Spring/Summer 2010, (Volume 28, Numbers 2,3 ) p.29.
The author writes: “When my children were in their teens, I was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, which greatly impacted upon them. Years later, my daughter became the confidant of a colleague whose mother had late stage cancer. The young woman was ashamed of her feelings, yet was able to share her suffering with my daughter, knowing I had been treated for breast cancer. She did not know that my daughter's enormous capacity for empathy was provoked by the feelings of suffering she felt when I had cancer. It was heartbreaking to see her so distressed.”