Memoirs of a breast cancer victim

Breast cancer is an illness that affects the victim’s body, soul and mind. It takes a toll on the body in all aspects, both physically and mentally.

Sadly, many women suffer from breast cancer all over the world. Most of these women are mothers.
We fail to remember that it doesn’t just affect a mother, but affects all those around her. It affects her family and friends very emotionally.
However, it mostly affects her children, I would know this, as I was a victim of breast cancer, my mum’s cancer.
Over this past year, I would always question why my mum was always weary and fatigued. Her appearance changed. Her angelic face became very pale.
It was like a mask I tried to take off but unfortunately couldn’t.
She would always be sleeping and always delaying errands. Until three months ago, I noticed that when she awoke from her 16-hour sleep she looked at me in a very confused way.
That look then became a stare that will be forever engraved on my memory.
Indeed fear took its presence. I called out to her but she didn’t reply.
I asked her for my name, but then my worst fears were realised, she couldn’t remember it. She couldn’t remember her own son’s name.
Seeing that I was just 15 years old at the time, you could imagine the pain this caused me. My mum was suffering from breast cancer with metastasis to the brain. Obviously I was in a state of shock. I was filled with anger. How can my mum, who used to take me to my tennis matches and support me from the stands and cheer me on like all mums, have cancer?
As I am just an adolescent boy, tears rolled down my face every single day I spent next to her at her hospital bedside.
I wanted answers to my many burning questions. Lost, I couldn’t find the answers.
Many of my friends would get upset when their mothers asked them to take the trash out, take a sibling to the park, or simply make a request to “do your homework”.
I would die to re-live those moments again with my own mother.
I am simply lost without her. One can only find solace in prayers and the support from those around.
As we laid her lifeless body on her final resting place, her face once again returned to being angelic, therefore, I now only wish that she is in a better place.
My mother might have forgotten my name, but I am sure that she hasn’t forgotten her never-ending love she had for me and my siblings.
I am told the number of women seeking cancer testing is very small and many either detect their cancer in the middle stages or too late for any chance of survival.
As a result, I would encourage them to have a test. The moral of my story is, however, that we should never take anything for granted.
Cancer can change a person’s life forever. Therefore, a young person should never get upset when one’s mother requests for the trash to be thrown out or for homework to be completed.
We always want to grow up fast, yet we fail to remember that a mother is everything to us.
She is our solace when we need it at the most difficult times.

The above letter was written by Ismaeel Rashid Na’ar, 16. He is a student at the Modern Knowledge School and lives in East Riffa with his father Rashid Na’ar, an aircraft dispatcher at Bahrain Airport Services, and his twin brother Abdulrahman, and sister Ameena, 15. Mrs Zenaida, a beloved wife and mother passed away on March 14, aged 49.