Breast Cancer: One Day at a Time

I was asked to be part of the Breast Cancer Society of Canada’s annual breakfast and lunch fund-raiser for Breast Cancer month. I was asked because my paintings are about very strong women who have had courage to overcome unbelievable situations. Since I was asked I thought that I would do a painting about breast cancer.

I have not had breast cancer myself, but it has touched me in a very profound way. When I was a child, my aunt stayed with us as she went through her treatments and I saw her everyday as she experienced the invasion of the cancer and the treatments. After over a year, she died, leaving her husband and four children.

This painting was conceived after reading an article in Chatelaine magazine. The article was about a young woman, who was a model and a single parent and developed breast cancer. As a single parent at the time myself, I could not imagine the fear that would go through your mind at the possibility of leaving your child without a parent. It must have been equally difficult to deal with the fashion industry’s, narrow standards of beauty and our fixation on breasts. How would she support herself?

Having lost my father when he was only forty-two, I had a renewed understanding of what our humanity can give us. I do not think that we are given anything that is not a gift on some level. At times like these it can be almost impossible to see it.  Perhaps one of the gifts that we can find is – now- that is really all we have- the here and now. None of us know how long.