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My Books |
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My Books
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Return to You're a Good Mom
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
I had four chapters of this book left to write when I found out I had cancer. One day I was finishing up my manuscript while juggling the final weeks of the school year, and the next, I was enduring a painful bone marrow biopsy to determine if cancer had spread throughout my body. Soon, I'd learn the lessons of my own book the hard way: I had to completely let go without going too far. My health - and my kids - were counting on it.
After my doctor diagnosed my non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, my publisher gave me a six-week deadline extension, and my brother gave me his laptop. Some days, I cranked out pages at a time in my hospital bed while chemotherapy drugs infused through tubes attached to my body. Other days, I could barely write a sentence before falling asleep for hours.
Yet somehow, I managed to maintain my sense of humor. In fact, even I can't tell which chapters I wrote B.C. - before cancer - and which I wrote afterwards. Writing kept my spirits up, and, perhaps, my white blood cell counts.
 But it wasn't easy. I spent the last few weeks of my kids' school year in the hospital. Every night, my boys played the piano for me over the phone while I fought back tears. I missed their Cub Scouts moving up ceremony, the second grade class party and the last day of school. Most of all, I missed my kids.
By the time I turned in my manuscript in August, I'd finished half of my chemotherapy treatments. The tumor in my lung, which had been the size of a softball, had shrunk to the size of a walnut. I was tired, weak and bald, but my kids didn't care as long as I was home, which, by the way, was under construction. In fact, I edited parts of this book while sawdust fell on my head from upstairs and strange men hammered and sawed on the other side of the wall.
When a friend dropped by after our kitchen was gutted and our siding removed, she said, "If this house isn't a metaphor for what's going on with you, I don't know what is." And here I thought I looked better than that. I mean, I was bald, but the house was naked.
We were very fortunate to have so much help. Every week, my friend, Susan, organized neighbors who cooked for us. Every Sunday, my friend, Kim, sent me a calendar which listed the neighbors who'd drive my kids to swim team practice, pick them up at science camp or take them home for a playdate. Both sets of grandparents, my sister-in-law and mMy husband (a.k.a. King of the Laundry) picked up the slack. Meanwhile, I snoozed on the couch. (You know, between all that hammering and sawing.)
 I could have shut my bedroom door and hidden all summer, but I didn't because I was frightened of what might happen. I had a vision of my kids, all grown-up, remembering when their mother had cancer as "the summer I took up smoking" or "the year I took to blowing up ant holes with M-80's," or worse. Though I couldn't be there for my boys the way I normally was, I knew I still had to be there, even if that simply meant playing charades and giggling for half-an-hour.
Other people might find solace in the likes of Maya Angelou or Hallmark. I turned to Stephen Colbert, who said, "You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time." So, I set up a Wacky Wig Contest, designed to let friends make me look as ridiculous as possible in my time of need.
Every week, all kinds of crazy wigs appeared in our mail. The kids ran around the house in the Marge Simpson, the Achy Breaky Heart and the Heatmeiser. I modeled them and posted the photos on MommaSaid.net for voting. Together, we laughed in the face of cancer. And you know what? The kids turned out okay.
I've finished my chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and my hair has grown back enough that I look like I'm either a marine home from Iraq or a back-up singer for Annie Lenox. Shortly after New Year's Day, my oncologist called me with spectacular news: I am in remission. What's more, our construction is done, and the house looks beautiful. It seems I've made it through the hardest part. At least, I sure hope so.
I learned a lot of things because of cancer. I learned a lot while writing this book. Most of all, I learned that I am a good mom - and that my kids aren't so bad, either.
Jen Singer
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