I remember the day, just a few weeks ago, I got the dreaded phone call updating me with the results from that simple test. That simple test, that sent my whole world spinning out of control.  Bonnie just happened to be in the room, as I hung up the phone. I just stood there frozen, staring off in space, trying to process what I had just heard. It didn’t seem real, how could my heart betray me like that.  My mind filled so quickly with a million different thoughts all at the same time, that even my Road Runner connection would have been jealous of the lightening fast speed at which my brain was downloading the data.

With all the what, why, where, when, who, and how questions all silently screaming in my head, they almost blocked out Bonnie’s voice when she anxiously asked ” Mom, what’s the matter?”  I think if I had a little more time between the call and her question, I would have withheld the information that I had just heard, from my Daughter. In my confused state of mind, for a split second I forgot that Bonnie was my Daughter and just how that news may have affected her. As a Mother that would normally protect her baby, I wanted to reel the words back in, just as soon as I realized I had blurted them out. Thankfully Bonnie didn’t visably fall apart, at least not so I could see, or I know I would have died knowing I had confided in my baby the fact that her Mom will die well before her time, if she doesn’t have this surgery.

Bonnie may think we don’t have a lot in common, except the family fat gene and sense of humor about it.

But I think there is a lot more than that we share. She has shown me, that just as her Mom was there for her, from the “kiss it make it better ” young years to the comforting feeling of knowing Mom is here when you need her as an adult. Bonnie has returned the favor and stepped in to Mom’s comforting shoes at a time when her familiar “tower of strength” Mom needed to be propped up a bit. So, I guess that runs in the family too. She’ll just have to get use to previously undiscovered family traits popping up in her from time to time. I just hope she can avoid some of the bizarre traits we’ve tried to keep securely locked in the large family closet.