The worries I had early on were small compared with what I faced in person when I went home in the summer. It was easiest for me when Mum was in bed all day after each weekly chemo treatment because I felt like she was safe there. The illness and pain felt somewhat contained, and I could visit her periodically and bring her what she asked for. Between treatments, when there was a semblance of normalcy to our lives, I was constantly worried. I hated that she was so uncomfortable when we were just trying to go about our normal lives out and about in the world. When Mum sometimes got tired or had stomachaches when we went shopping, I felt like maybe I knew what it felt like to be a mother like she had always been. For the first time, I was worrying more about someone else more than I was about myself. I wanted to do anything I could to make her feel better—anything she asked.

The pain wasn’t just physical. If Mum’s cancer was emotionally traumatic for me, I can’t imagine how she felt, even as I was understanding her in other new ways. I was in the same room or the next room from her most of the time that I was home, but being of actual aid to her felt impossibly out of reach. My sense of helplessness only dissipated when I did something for Mum and it seemed to actually lift her mood. Sitting and talking to her reminded us both that she was a person, not just a patient. Sometimes, just my fetching her a glass of water made her smile. Still, I couldn’t take her suffering away completely. That was what the chemo toxins pumped into Mum were for, even though those toxins were making her feel so unwell in the process. Everything I did was inadequate: She was still in pain.

If Mum read that, I can imagine the look she would give me. She’d tell me not to feel bad; that I am as helpful as I can be; to Not. Worry. When I talked about feeling useless against cancer with Brodie, she reminded me that we are not medical professionals—it is not our job to make our mums better. Distracting them from their symptoms with conversations, jokes, and drinks of water is the best that we can do. I think this was especially true for Mum, who seemed to want to forget her cancer as much as possible. Mum is somewhat private, and she didn’t want to share everything she was going through. It was just not in her nature to embrace her hair loss, so she couldn’t. But why should she have to? There is the archetype of the chemotherapy patient shaving their hair off—nipping that trauma in the bud. I even told Mum I would shave my hair off too, as a statement of solidarity, so she wouldn’t feel alone in being bald. That was the brave thing to do, right?

Outside of the clinical numbers I saw on the news, television had mostly shown me talk-show stories of fearless, bald cancer patients claiming victory over the illness and recovering. What I learned from Mum is that there are all kinds of bravery, and she chose to show hers in a different way. Instead of shaving her head, Mum wore a cold cap to try and save her hair from the harsh effects of chemo, and her effort to save her hair is just as admirable as shaving it would have been. It’s noble to hide how depleted chemo makes you feel, if that helps you cope as you heal. Mum didn’t want any photos taken of her without her wig, or straight after treatment when she was particularly pale, so I resisted the urge to visually document the experience and to show how I thought she looked: incredibly strong and resilient.

I wanted my favorite people to know, though. I would give my closest friends updates, especially when they asked. I told Emily, who had been with me throughout, every horrible feeling that came with Mum’s cancer. I couldn’t always be socially present in every moment because I spent so much time focusing on how Mum was; I was sometimes forgetful or slightly rude. I wanted my friends to understand why I might be reluctant to smile or have fun. But mostly, I kept Mum’s illness private: I didn’t want it to become an excuse for my behavior, or for people to find out secondhand, when I couldn’t explain the details or my emotions. I didn’t want to be vague about what it was like for me, or for Mum, who deserves all the vividness she can get.

There were no fireworks when Mum’s last chemo treatment finally took place this past December. Mum and I talked about how we had assumed normalcy would return to our lives straight away, and we were unsettled when it didn’t. The burden of fortnightly, sometimes weekly, sometimes daily hospital visits has been lifted, but Mum is still worn out. She isn’t about to scale literal mountains or Eat, Pray, Love across the world after going through breast cancer. She just wants to feel like herself again doing the day-to-day things she’s always enjoyed: eating out, meeting friends, going to work. Other survivors might approach it differently, and they, too, are heroic.

My whole family continues to come to terms with Indestructible Mum’s capacity to become ill: The reality that the same person who looked after us all, always, and clothed and fed me without a qualm could become so sick was difficult, and awful, to admit. But we’re at the start of a new year, and that time has been fundamental to easing the heartbreaking impact cancer had on our family and helping me see it a bit differently. Now that her human vulnerability has been revealed to me, Indestructible Mum is even more so. ♦