My Mom Has Cancer; Her Stories From the Past Are Helping Me Cope

As a child, my mother had a habit of pointing out various military planes in the sky and explaining their names and purposes.

I heard those same planes zoom overhead on various military bases when I watched her, clad in an Air Force uniform with her short red hair peeking out stubbornly under her hat, command the respect of fellow officers with an ease I admired.

It seemed like nothing could phase her — when it came to overseeing aircraft maintenance squadrons, Lieutenant Colonel Stinson — my mother — was in her element.

How ironic it was that after everything she faced fearlessly in the Air Force, cancer was the one thing that scared her.

Hearing my mom had cancer was a shock

Having retired as a lieutenant colonel after 20 years of service in the early 2000s, my mom had enjoyed post-retired life in San Antonio.

Early this year, she told me of pains in her abdomen that were unbearable. Her doctor recommended a hysterectomy, and during her operation, the doctor removed a large cancerous tumor on her uterus. However, some of her lymph nodes also looked concerning, so some biopsies were taken.

After her hysterectomy, my mom seemed more energetic, returning to the vibrant woman I remembered. During the two-week wait for those biopsy results, I truly believed they wouldn’t show cancer. I was wrong.

One of her lymph nodes had cancer. Hearing the Stage 3 uterine cancer diagnosis shattered my delusion. A sense of shock surged through my body that left me feeling strangely numb. I heard the doctor say, “Chemo,” and “hair loss,” and after weeks of holding back tears, I started to cry.

No prescription can ease the shock of a loved one’s cancer diagnosis. However, stories from my mother’s past have become the remedy we sorely needed, as I sit with her through each chemotherapy treatment.

We got to talk a lot about the past during her treatment

The older I got, the more I told myself that I would record her story one day, but time slipped by. Then, when I heard the doctor diagnose her with cancer, time seemed more finite.

“You were doing the ‘Captain Marvel’ thing before it was cool,” I’d told her one day while we were sitting in the chemotherapy treatment center.

Becoming a commissioned officer in the Air Force after college had always been my mom’s dream. But as she jokingly told me, the Air Force wasn’t exactly seeking experts in radio—her major in school.

Instead, there was a greater demand for aircraft maintenance officers. So, after graduating, she found herself in maintenance school — a path she hadn’t planned for — and nearly failed out. Still, she was determined to succeed.

Despite the initial setback, my mom slowly but surely rose up the ranks. A combination of her hard work and aptitude for leadership, recognized by the performance boards of her superiors, determined who should be promoted.

Watching her eyes light up with every story she tells is medicine my heart didn’t know it needed.

I had taken the stories for granted

My mom had repeatedly told me that she had two major life goals — one was to serve her country. The other was to be a mother.

She had dealt with her fair share of workplace sexism during her tenure, rode in a fighter jet twice as a passenger (another requirement for officers in maintenance squadrons), fallen asleep in cargo planes, helped found a Logistics Scho, overseen the flyover for the late senator Barry Goldwater’s funeral, and been invited to be a White House aide.

I had taken her stories for granted growing up, and now I hungered for more of my mother’s memories: how a wing commander visited her in the hospital after she gave birth to me, seeing a picture of her in uniform, back turned to the camera, walking toward a fighter jet with her hair firmly in place.

Lost in a sea of memories that weren’t mine, I felt a spark reignite in my soul, a fire that had dimmed ever since I had heard the cancer diagnosis. Her stories kept the blaze of the future alight in us both, something more powerful than any fighter jet engine could muster.

My mother has always been a fighter, and she still is. I was doing her a disservice by being sad.