Today my mother turns 62.  Her cancer turns 3.

 

Numbers are so haughty.  Numbers are the aristocracy of time and they know it.  “Without us, how can you measure a life?” they say.  “Without us, how can you identify change?”

 

My mother has stage 4 ovarian cancer. This means that the tumors in her body are greater than 2 cm. in diameter. Tumors, like children, receive grades, from 0-3, in rising scale of malignancy.  My mother, always the overachiever, carries around inside of her, along her pelvis and liver and pancreas and lymph nodes, a veritable symposium of Grade 3 tumors.