Cancer claims life of a daughter's best friend

It was the summer of 2007. I was a sophomore at Howard University. My peers and classmates were preparing for study abroad programs, internships at Fortune 500 companies and tropical vacations. I was preparing, too. But it was a preparation for going to war alongside my mother as she battled stage four breast cancer.A few weeks before I arrived home to Detroit from Howard, my mother discovered a growth in her underarm region. The doctor informed us that it would take at least a week before we would get a solid answer as to what was really going on, and that when the lab tests got back, he would determine the best method of removal and would call her to schedule a surgery date.

The time slowly passed but before long, I was returning from my first year at school, eager to enjoy the summer months with my best friend, my mom.

We were sitting on the living room floor watching my niece crawl back and forth when the phone rang. Henry Ford Hospital flashed across the phone's caller ID display. Mom took the call and from the reaction on her face, I knew the news couldn't be good.

The next thing I remember is the phone dropping to the floor, my mother's eyes welling up and the room moving in slow motion as the words cancer left her mouth.

The doctor had informed my mother that they had made a mistake. The harmless growth that they diagnosed as a mere boil, was in fact a cancerous tumor.

For the next months to follow, my mother would go to chemotherapy treatments twice a month. And even with an IV of poisonous liquids flowing through her body, she remained optimistic.

"I'm going to fight this," became her motto. I tried to remain hopeful, like my dad and brothers, but still at the back of my mind there were thoughts about what would happen and how things would be if mom didn't make it. How would it be to not call my mother as I walked to class, to tell her about my newest crush or to find out the latest scoop from our daily soaps? What would it be like to not have my mother in the audience as I walked across the stage to receive my college diploma or there in the delivery room as I delivered my first child?

I knew my mother was a strong woman but during this ordeal I realized that she was the strongest person that I ever knew. And while her strength and faith remained abundant, the strength of me and my family slowly diminished.

I never saw my father shed a tear until now. My youngest brother, who once joked, laughed and could talk your ear off all the time became quiet and somber and barely said a word other than "hi" and "bye." And my oldest brother who for all his life was known as the quiet one began to keep to himself even more, to the point where he shut himself off from everyone in the outside world.

Then there was me who would sit in my room in total darkness and cry myself to sleep. Sometimes my eyes would be so puffy and red that I would feign sickness to avoid going to class and letting my peers and professor see me that way. My studying habits suffered and instead of doing research for school projects that I had, I chose to research medical advances that could help my mother fight her cancer. One would've thought I worked for Karmano's Cancer Institute with the amount of information that was stored on my computer's desktop.

At the end of summer, it was time for me to return to Howard for my sophomore year. I did not want to leave my mother but she reassured me that she would continue to fight this disease and that the best thing that I could do for her is return to school and continue to "kick butt" as she would often say.

Months passed and with each treatment, the signs of the disease in her body began to fade. I could not have asked for anything greater. By the time Christmas time arrived, my mother had finished her last bout of chemo and although she would have to undergo a mastectomy, that was the least of my concerns. All I wanted was my cancer-free mom back.

After awhile she no longer had to use the walker, they gave her and she was moving up and down the stairs as if nothing had ever happened. Christmas came and left and it was as if the smiles on our faces were permanent.

We thought we had claimed victory over this disease, but would soon find out that the battle was not over.

My mother began to grow fatigue, her energy level diminished and she became less mobile. And when one night she became unable to move or feel her legs, we knew something was wrong.

The next day the doctor's confirmed our worst fears, the cancer had came back and spread to not only the spinal cord but also the brain. The prognosis was three months at most.

We all know that our parents will one day leave us, but to know that my mother would be leaving me when I was only 19 seemed surreal.

After hearing this devastating news, I made one of the toughest decisions in my life. I chose to leave Howard University and be there for my ailing mother. I knew that I could always go back and get my education but a mother only comes once in a life.

My new home: the hospital room where my mother and I shared some of our greatest laughs, tears and mother daughter moments.

One laugh I can remember us sharing as if it were yesterday was my mom joking about my current love interest, a football player she called "sausage fingers." For once in months it was as if things were normal again, as if my mom wasn't hooked up to machines, fighting for her life.

As the doctors had promised, my mom's health began to slowly fade and while at school for a short visit, I was told to rush back home because my mother had stopped breathing on her own. The next day she was gone.

Though deep down inside I wanted to cry, I wanted to lash out at the world and I wanted to ask the Lord why? I did none of the above because when I kissed my mom on the forehead for the last time, I could hear her voice saying, "Its ok and you'll be ok." And that was all I needed to hear.

So when one asks me how do you cope with not having a mother, I simply respond, "because I know I'll be ok.