My Mom

A few years ago I was honoured to work on a project for the Guardian Angels Benefit. This is a big fundraising event to support research for womens’ cancers. My job was to photograph the survivors and their families; to document some of the ways that families cope when their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters are diagnosed and treated for cancer.

I never once imagined that I would be repeating this project in my own family.  My mother was diagnosed with cancer of the uterus almost 3 years ago. She is one of those women “living with cancer.” Because she has always been a most remarkable woman, she is living her life as though nothing is wrong – doing the shopping and gardening and continuing to be her happy go lucky and ever-positive self.

Through several grueling rounds of chemo –  the last round just finished in May – and daily commutes in a 90 minute drive (one way) to the main hospital for radiation treatments, she has never once complained, expressed frustration, voiced any anger. She just takes it all in stride and treats all the  medical appointments like social visits, bringing the staff little gifts, fruit from her garden, and chatting away about the goings on in village where she and my dad live.

“It’s nothing.” she says. “I enjoy visiting with the nurses – they are so nice!”

And now she must do this all over again – more radiation. It seems it has spread.

I shot this in June when I was last out for a visit. She was making fun of her bald head and lack of eyebrows (if you look closely you’ll see she “painted” them on – she always was an expert in the make up department!)  My mom.