For those who don't know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For it is a time of reflection as I lost my grandmother to breast cancer last year. Talk about a tough time! I was eight months pregnant with her first great grandchild. I will never forget the day she passed away....

I was in Lamaze class with my husband and for some reason I just wasn't getting into it. It's not that it works anyway. With all the pain I was in when I was giving birth, I told them to cut me any way they felt necessary. They could've made a design if the spirit moved them, I just wanted it Out! But back to the story, I wasn't really into the class that day and my husband was dozing off next to me, and all of a sudden, my son started going crazy in my stomach. It looked like some Sh*T straight out of alien. I remember looking at my belly and asking, "Dude, are you all right?" And I looked at the clock in the room, it read 6:10. I remember thinking, "Okkkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay..." And at then he stopped. Mind you all that week, I kept saying I needed to go see my grandmother. I didn't think this hospital visit was too serious. She had been in the hospital before for an extended period of time, and when I would go see her we would be laughing and joking and taking about her great grand child. I remember leaving class and my honey and I going across the street to get a bagel with butter and I checked my cellphone. I saw that my baby cousin had called so I called her back. When she picked up the phone, she was bawlin'. And just like that I knew. And the only thing I said to myself was, "Oh sh*t."

When we got to the hospital it was surreal. I mean I could believe it, but then I couldn't, ya know? My grandma was gone. I really don't remember much of what happened in the hospital. I mean, my 'uncle' from Cali was there and my uncle's friend's from High School were all there; those who grandma had taken in and loved as if they were her own children. I didn't cry though. It was like I was kind of expecting it. I mean, I knew grandma was sick but the fact that she had decided to stop fighting still had me in a state of surreal shock. It seemed I was everybody's major concern and all but I was cool. When I got to see the body, I looked at her, held her hand and kissed her goodbye. My mom gave me a big hug like only my mom can and I hugged her back. Her and my grandmother may have bumped heads on many occassions, but it was only because they were so much alike and couldn't see it. My aunts and I would have good laughs about it whenever they would fight.

Anywho, it was later that I found out the exact time my grandmother passed away. Would you believe it was 6:10pm? Til this day I still believe that my son going haywire in my stomach was his way of telling me that my grandmother had passed.

It wasn't until an exact year later that I cried. The anniversary of her death hit me like an emotional MAC truck and once the tears started they didn't want to stop.

So I encourage anyone who has a loved one who is suffering from this disease, to spend as much time as you can with them. You never know when they will no longer put up a fight and let the cancer consume them. Show them that there is a million reasons for them to stay around and fight for another day of life. I wish I had done that for my grandmother. Maybe if I had she would have at least seen her great grandson be born.