A Letter to My Children Who Loved Their Sister Through Cancer

Debbie Legault is the mother of a young woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 27. Catch up on Debbie’s blogs here!

I know I have always been the hub of this family, the person you relied upon when you needed advice or a safe place to land. Even when you all became adults, the default setting in your “I have a problem” app was “Call my Mom”. And while I might not always have helped you come to a solution, I knew that our conversations usually moved you forward on the path to making things work.

If trips needed to be planned, you knew I’d find the best deals. If a big dinner needed to be cooked for a get-together, I created the menu and shopped for the food. If you moved houses, you would look at me and say “Please, Mom, help me organize this nonsense” and I’d find miraculous storage options you hadn’t even thought of. It’s not that you’re incapable. On the contrary, your resourcefulness and ability to think outside the box is a source of amazement and pride to me. I just think we all knew that I loved being that version of Mom and we let that be okay.

Then your sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, and in a heartbeat, our entire world shifted.

It’s hard to explain how much my focus narrowed. You still existed. I could see you. But as the reality of what your sister’s cancer treatment would mean for her (and, as her intimate caregiver, for me) became clear, my capacity to play the role I had always played shrank in reflection.

And what did you do in response?

You stepped in and stepped up.

I was prepared for resentment. I was ready for you to express a sense of abandonment. I was reconciled that balls would get dropped and family traditions would be left behind. What I wasn’t expecting - at all -was the depth of compassion, the understanding, and forgiveness for things left undone or forgotten you offered me when my world was a very dark place.

I don’t think it’s possible to define what a gift you were to me when I was at my lowest. You opened your home and changed plans at a moment’s notice, moving bedrooms and schedules around to accommodate our needs. You became your own sounding board or found others to help you make decisions because calling me became a non-option. You saw that I only had so much energy to give and were determined that you would not draw on any of it so it was all there for your sister. You planned the dinners, you put up the decorations, you sent funny memes to brighten my day. And when the despair of watching your sister suffer meant that putting one foot in front of the other was all I could manage, you invisibly put your hands on my shoulders and in doing so said “We’ve got you, Mom, so you can have her”.

Cancer changes people and it changes the people closest to them, too. I didn’t realize I could be broken until your sister was going through cancer treatment, I don’t think any of us did, and when it happened you had a choice to make. You could have altered your view of who I was when you saw the cracks to someone less than, but instead you chose to acknowledge that part of me with gentleness and support until I could put myself back together.

I’ve come to realize that you had all the tools and skills you needed to take the lead but never did because that was my role in our family play. When cancer took me out, the understudies took the stage and the show went on. Funnily enough, as we get further away from the dark times and I want to step back into my old shoes you’re all happy to let me and we all know you do it because you know it brings me joy, not because I’m better at it.

Cue the standing ovation from your biggest fan.

This piece reflects the author’s personal experience and perspective. For medical advice, please consult your health care provider.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.