Kelly Corrigan's
memoir of
growing up—
the first time,
and the second time.
[Click here]
....................................

by Kelly Corrigan, 36 years old, Stage III Breast Cancer Survivor
Kelly writes a bi-monthly column on everyday life. If you'd like us to email her columns to you, click -->

Today is the day that I become bald, the day that I hang a shiny red sign around my neck that announces, "I am in chemotherapy." It should also, perhaps, be the day I take down all the mirrors in the house and stop thinking of myself as a woman, more like just a person, androgynous. But I don't want to be that person, in the meditative pose, accepting her fate. I want to be the person walking past that person, slowing down a little, admiring her for her courage. I want to bake that person cookies and be an ear for her and drive her kids to school and be her hero. I want to be on the other side, the side where you just visit cancer. I want to go home, already, and home is so far away.

But my friends are here, with an electric shaving kit, and all their love and support.
I have a cranberry and vodka, then 2 beers and a cigarette and then, it starts. I am on the deck, wrapped in an old fraying sheet. Georgia and Claire are here, and Sophie, my seventeen year-old babysitter and friend, and her friend Tori, who came with her just because, and then a couple more close friends. The more of a show, the better, the easier to keep my distance from it.

It is perfect, actually. We have many great laughs and somehow, it doesn't seem so awful. After it is all off, and everyone has kissed and rubbed my stubbly head, I take a quick shower to wash off all the little hairs. Edward comes up and opens the shower door and looks at me like he's a teenager seeing tits for the first time. He says, "I know you're gonna think I am blowing sunshine up your ass but it looks really good." And then I start crying, almost heaving, and he says, "Really...I'm serious...you can do this...because you have such a pretty face." And I step right out of the running shower and soak him head to toe with my wet hug and it all comes out, gushing, burning, unstoppable tears. Then I take him by the shoulders like a wise old matriarch and say through my crying, "I am so proud of you. You are such a good husband, and that is such an important thing to be, and so many people aren't good at it and you really are. You really are."

And I knew that he really did think I looked like a hot sci-fi chick. He doesn't know how to lie.