The day I got my diagnosis

I lie on the bed with my husband.
We wait.

We hold each other in silence.
Sometimes one of us breaks into tears—quick, sharp sobs—then quiet again.

Time stretches.
And still, nothing prepares me for what I am about to do.

The front door opens.
“Hello? Mom?”

She appears in the doorway.
My beautiful child. Almost grown.

She smiles. Her eyes don’t.
“How are you, Mom? You wanted to talk?”

My voice won’t come.
But it has to.

From this moment on, nothing will be the same.
For any of us.

She sits on the bed. I take her hand.
A hand I know by heart.

“I had the scan today,” I say.
“The doctor called right away. It doesn’t look good.”

“What do you mean?”
“Was it Crohn’s?”
Panic.

“Oh, my love.”
“There’s a tumor in my small intestine.
And metastases in my liver.
Many.”

“Mom?”
“Do you have cancer?”
“You can’t.”

And then I know:
her world has collapsed.
And it feels like I am the one who caused it.

We cry.
A long time.

Then silence.

Out of nowhere, I say,
“I’m afraid of becoming ugly.”

She doesn’t miss a beat.
“Then we’ll get you crazy wigs.”
“You can be a crazy wig lady.”

“I want one like British judges wear,” I say.

We laugh.

Of course.
Of course I will have crazy wigs.

And in that moment, I understand:
this is how we face the unthinkable.
With brutal humor.
And love.

⸻

It turned out I wouldn’t need a wig after all.
The cancer was of a different kind.
A stranger one.

Still, I’m afraid of becoming ugly.

And maybe that’s how life is meant to be lived:
surface and depth.
Joy and grief.

And when it’s necessary—
raw humor,
just to endure.