Connect with Cecilia O. for Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day – Not my day, but their day…

As an introduction, I would like to say that I would do anything to turn back time, go back a few years, make a few different choices, show more self-awareness and listen to my body. I would go back to 2013 and make that mammogram appointment!

I know today, that it would have changed my life, it would have prevented me from living the most difficult period in my life. Not only for me but also for my husband, daughters, my parents, my sister, my brother, my best friends who care for me and love me so much. We just don’t realize early enough in a lifetime that we owe self-awareness and self-esteem to the ones that love us. We care for them but guess what?   They care for us as well, they love us!

In May 2015, during this period, I knew that my daughters didn’t really know how to cope with me, how to celebrate their Mother’s Day that year. I guess my husband didn’t really know what advice to give them either on how to celebrate since I was right in the middle of a very heavy protocol for fighting breast cancer. All seemed so important and so irrelevant on a same time. Crying or laughing…

I decided to help my girls, relieve them from worries on not having the right surprise.  I told my girls, the night before, that I didn’t need anything else in my life more than them, their love and encouragements.  I told them “You’re already the most beautiful thing in my life, my reason for fighting and getting up every morning. I need nothing and I want nothing. I have you. But knowing that you will want to give or do something for me, just take my diary, write me something.  I’ll keep it forever and ever. Something that I’ll be proud of and something you can look back at and maybe smile and laugh to, because you’re just two young ladies.

I woke up the morning of Mother’s Day and found this in my diary.

 “Mom, you’re so courageous, this is such a difficult and complicated year for you, you support it well because you’re such a fighter. I’ll always be with you in your heart” Nora

”Mom, you are fabulous in this very difficult year. You’re a warrior. I love you. You can count on me, even if I’m not here. You’ll always be in my heart. I hope I’m in your heart too. I love you” Maya

If you take a look at these words and read between the lines, , clear sign of love and that they have observed me and realized that the amazing fight in me. I am so pleased that they are proud of me. But they are also still anxious. My two girls are both speaking about my love and how they want to be inside my heart. Of course, I wanted to be the perfect mother, but breast cancer resulted in 90% of my attention being focused on me…to heal. The truth is….it was more than a full-time job.  It meant less attention on them, even if I tried so hard every day to act like I had always acted in the past

This is one of the many key reasons I would turn back time; to prevent my daughters from living through this period. I know that they understood in a couple of months, what other kids need a whole life to understand. They understood, strength, trust, love and what life is all about. They understood and accepted to set everything aside for me that year, just to help and support.

Since that time, Mother’s Day has become I day where I want to show how much I love them, how much they count for me, how much I admire them and their strength.

I’ve been educating them since 2015 on self-awareness and self-esteem, to listen to and check their bodies. I want them to always be a step ahead, to never ever have to live my story.

I remember that year I spent that day reassuring everyone that I was all right, and that I felt so happy and so grateful.  Repeating and repeating again that I’m a very lucky lady. Everything could have been worse and so very different. But finally….as you can read, we are here, all together.

I need to also add a word on my difficulties to call my own mom that year. A mom is happy when her kids are happy. So, when I called her, the only wishes she wanted was to see me healed. Also hearing that I was all right, and that I felt good. Checking out how my girls felt that day.  That was what made Mother’s Day great.

Let’s drink Champagne, celebrate life, love and beautiful daughters and our own moms! Promise to never skip an exam!