To Breast Cancer:

You have been my adversary for 23 years.  Your ruthlessness has haunted me.  Your unpredictability and deception have caused many sleepless nights.  I was convinced you would return for me.

I prepared my battle plan.  Healthy Diet.  Exercise.  Self exams.  Fundraising events.  Yearly doctor visits.  Yearly mammograms.  MRIs. Biopsies. I wasn’t going to underestimate you again.  Because where you are concerned, a strong offense is the best defense.  I was ready.

Time went by and you were silent.  You were wreaking havoc in stranger’s lives and had left me to go on about living.  Or so I thought. I realize now that you merely wanted me to let my guard down.  You wanted me to forget.  Time and distance helped ease my fear of you and this was part of your plan.

And then you returned.  You didn’t come to my threshold but instead to that of my family.  My daughter’s family.  Both of my sisters in law.  My mother in law.  You are a stealth and sly opponent and I understand the game you are playing now.  You realized that I would rather face you head on and battle you myself than to watch you destroy my family.  Their health and happiness.

You silently rejoice when you cause suffering.  And you know the surest way to do this is through my daughter.  To incite the fear in me through my worry for her.

You may have won the battle all those years ago but you will not win the war.

I refuse to show you weakness.  I will turn the fear into fight.  I will fight for her.

You see, there are two people on this planet that have held a piece of my feminine soul.  One, my mother, you took from me.  And one, my daughter, I will never surrender to you.

I lay with my mother in her bed as she took her last breath; as you silenced her. I held her soft hand as she drifted away from me.  You took her from me and for that I will always have contempt.

But that fuels my drive to defeat you.  That strengthens my will to find an end to you.  Whatever it takes-I will not rest until you have been conquered.

There are many daughters, sisters, and friends that have seen what you can do.  They have seen the destruction you leave in your wake.  They have felt the pain of losing a loved one to you.  But, you can be assured that there are mothers out there as well.  Mothers that will fight tooth and nail for the safety and well-being of their daughters.  And when groups of women come together with a common goal of protecting their daughters-they will be unstoppable.

For you have never seen something as fierce as a woman fighting for her child.

So I am ready.

I will yell from the hilltops about you.

I refuse to be silent.