My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 46. It was the beginning of 1982 and I was in my first year of high school at the Ethel Walker School, an all-girls boarding school in Simsbury, Connecticut.

They found the cancer sort of by accident when she went to the hospital to have her gallbladder removed. Mimo was the one who told me. I think they were trying to keep the news from me. Maybe thinking I was too young.

It was a regular night around the Stoner house. I was home for the weekend from school. Dinner was being prepared and I was watching Mash reruns in the television room. Mimo came in and told me to set the table. Not an unusual request since this was one of my regular responsibilities. But something about her bossy attitude really rubbed me the wrong way and I said, “No.”

“What do you mean, no?” she said. “Go set the table.”

“I’m watching TV.”

“Ami has cancer. Go set the table.”

I was really taken aback by this news, but I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know so I said, “I know that.” And then I went and set the table for dinner.

My mother was prone to the dramatic, and that night there was drama. She began to talk about how she was going to die and that my father would get remarried and we kids better watch out about the new wife and make sure she didn’t take everything. It was bad. My father sat there stoically while Ami accused him of remarrying some woman who did not exist.

For the first few weeks she continued with the “I’m dying and I can’t get up” kind of talk. We all tried to be understanding. After all, she did have cancer.

We also begged her to stop smoking and she almost agreed, but then her doctor said, “As much as I want you to stop smoking too, this probably isn’t the best time to do it.” He said her body was already under so much stress that quitting smoking would be too major of a change and would be too much for her to handle. Wow, really? Do they still tell cancer patients not to quit smoking?

She went through chemotherapy and radiation and responded quite well. Puchi was with her most of this time since I think the rest of us were away at college, or in my case boarding school. And my father, probably tired of being accused of getting remarried, decided he better go to Pakistan and look after the chickens.

Eventually she changed her attitude and decided, “This cancer is not going to get me, not yet anyway. I’ll beat it.” And things started looking up. She ended her treatment six months early, and to celebrate, she took my sisters and me to Barbados.

She was in remission for many years. When the cancer came back, she was in her late fifties and living in Pakistan again. I think it was around 1994 and I was about 27. We had sold the Stoner Drive house in 1989 and I was living with some friends in the West End of Hartford on Fern Street. My mother and I had recently reconciled after two years of not talking to each other. She had “disowned” me because I came out as a lesbian. She had a really hard time with the lesbian stuff, but that’s another, much longer, story.

We were speaking on the phone, one of our regular calls. I asked her if she needed anything from the US. Ami had recently had a mastectomy which she refused to do the first time around. “Well,” she said. “I’m having a hard time finding a prosthetic bra here, so if you could send one of those that would be good. And a wig. I’m losing my hair.”

Trying to make her feel hopeful, I responded.  “I’ll send the wig, but I think you would look much more glamorous in one of those head wraps Elizabeth Taylor wears. I’ll send both. And the prosthetic bra, well, those are easy to find here. You know there are a lot of breast cancer awareness efforts and the government is putting more resources into breast cancer research so I’m sure it will be easy enough to find a prosthetic bra.”

And her response? “I know you’re a lesbian, but don’t become a feminist on me now.” First of all, the fact that she thought I might not already be a feminist was a bit of a surprise, but even more astonishing was  the fact that she, a woman with cancer, and only one breast, was frowning upon the “feminist” position that more money for breast cancer research is a good thing. Wow.