Despite the sparkling Christmas lights and the big fuzzy pajamas, the feeling throughout the house was not so warm and inviting. Traces of wrapping paper littered the ground. A thin glimmering blanket of snow cast a bright white light inside the house. Leaning against the counter, my mom sipped at her usual morning coffee, with her legs unevenly crossed. Her results were in a few days ago. The doctor call lasted a whole 3 minutes. She tried to wait to tell us, or even never tell us at all, in hopes to keep the corruption from grazing our ears. Maybe she hoped if she kept it to herself it could pass as a bad dream. But that was almost a year ago now, and if anything, it was a nightmare. 

The air was stale in the kitchen that December morning, and the fuzzy lights were pale. The room was dry and cold, as if the heat couldn’t quite reach everywhere. My toes felt blue as they dragged across the cold tile floor. The counter was cleared and dishes sat to dry, eerily awaiting their home in the cupboard. The pained and conflicted look in her eyes bellowed throughout the room, echoing against the cabinets and bouncing off the floors. She knew she couldn’t bear this burden alone, though she wanted to. Her lips curled as the foreign words slipped out of her mouth: “I have cancer”. 

Her body tightened as she said the words. She gripped tight to her blond hair, as it cascaded off of her square shoulders. Her small blue eyes tinted in the white light, traces of tears in their wake. She was not usually the anxious type. With work, financial situations, anything she faced was solved with a solution by the next month. She was an eye for an eye kinda gal, and she was puzzled. What could she take from cancer that would equal what cancer would soon take from her? 

Over the next few months, the floodgates were opened. A stream of messages and support overwhelmed my family. As grateful as we were for the exposure and the love, it was a constant reminder of the struggle at hand. A mask was thrown on in public. Fake smiles and bright eyes, in hopes to keep the pain away from anyone in close reach. No one knew the strife, the inherent suffering. All of our support was out of pity; an emotionally exhausting positive pity. Pity or not, it was still support, and though she (and I) would never admit it, she could not have done it without all the warm arms, at least pretending to welcome her in. 

Not only did floodgates of vague support trickle open, but the dams of tension exploded. Her hormone-based triple negative breast cancer viciously fed on stress. Yet, that had no effect on the constant and barbaric screaming in my household. Words exploded from the volcanoes of our mouths, morbid swears and empathetic cries rang throughout. We decided the most logistic plan of attack was to bond together, even if the emotion in the air made it more than excruciatingly hard to do so.
In an act of that god-forsaken pity, my good friend Samantha gave me a ribbon on a  key-chain. Over the past few months I had seen hundreds of them. On the street, in facebook posts, just right in my face all the time. I felt trapped. The bright pink walls were closing in around me everywhere I turned. I banged and screamed, but the sound just echoed back and replayed in my ears, over and over again. This pink room in my head was small. Bright enough to make your eyes pop and your head ache. The color was so even throughout that the walls never seemed to begin or end. And I was in there, trapped. I found my mind to be broken, completely overwhelmed from the pink prison.

Samantha was supportive. Out of all my friends, her family was the most involved. They asked me about my mom, but also knew when it just wasn’t right to talk about it. I appreciated that, but as much as they tried, I was still trapped in that room. From time to time, she would just drop by bearing support.

On one of these occasions, she dropped by with a bag of ‘cancer items´. I usually did not enjoy these visits. They made me cringe, to the extreme where I could feel it in my shoulders. I had not yet embraced this disease. I rejected the idea of pain and hardship with every fiber of my being. 

 This time in particular, she brought over a set of pink playing cards, a candle, and some other pieces for our eclectic collection. One thing however, stood out. A dark pink cancer ribbon. I had seen them so many times before, but for some reason this one stood out. I was still stuck in that room in my head, a lock with no door, but now maybe I had a key. Why that ribbon? I am still not sure. I just know that as it grazed my hands, something shifted. 

I turned over the pink felt in my tired fingertips, already sensing how worn it would shortly become. The smooth material juxtaposed the rest of the items on my keychain, and in the same way  it fit in. Just like any other journey I had been on, this served the same purpose.I glanced back up at Cate in confusion, where had she gotten it? Why had she given it to me? Afterall it was my mom fighting this battle, not me. Her eyes looked back at me in certainty, with an awareness that made me feel as though I had no questions to ask. I continued to caress the ribbon. The texture of the malleable leather-like material slid under the grooves of my hands, as tears well up in my eyes. Such a small ribbon, with so much to say, so much to represent.

I was in that pink room, and holding that felt ribbon tight against my chest. My hands were red and sore from my previous banging on the walls. My efforts didn't even do so much as make a dent. I sat down, to feel the walls closing in. As I scanned my prison, a window appeared. My mom, was on the other side, her hands bloody from the pounding. Tears were streaming down her face as she yelled and screamed at the walls before her. Her face was red with exhaustion. My face started to tighten and swell in reaction to hers. My eyes tried their best to hold back tears. I felt the pressure in my throat. The tension just kept building and building until my eyes snapped. I felt every part of my body ache for her. She would never stop beating that wall. Bloody hands, tired eyes, sore throat, it did not matter. She would not stop until the pink room had a door, and was decorated with ribbons from her victory. 

It was then that it hit me. This battle is not hers alone, mine alone, or my family’s alone. This single battle was a part of a much larger war. A war that hundreds of thousands of men and women have fought, and will continue to fight. A war that many have sacrificed for. Will they ever know the movement created in the light of their loss? The masses of pink that gather in rebellion to the pain of giving up. To the seas of ribbons that flow in pride of their strength. 

Whenever I feel weak, or disheartened, I grab that ribbon. Whenever I need to remember, that it's okay to feel vulnerable, that ribbon is right there next to me. As it turns over in my fingers, I am reminded of the incredulous strength that not only my mom has found, but that so many other men and women have found. It took a long time for me to accept the cancer. I tried my damndest to push it down until it went away, and just ignore it. I wasn't as strong as she was. But watching her prevail through this evil has inspired me to look at life in a new way. So, I carry it wherever I go, as a memento of courage. So I can be prepared to relive those moments if it were ever to strike again. It stands for a journey of pain, and the beauty within it.