Boobs.
A very good friend of mine had breast cancer and a subsequent radical double mastectomy in the 80s.
All the chemo made her teeth rot and fall out, so she’s got caps and bridges and all kinds of fake choppers now. A lifelong anti-drug person, the treatments made her tired and sick enough to ask her closest friend to bring her pot and teach her how to smoke it.
For nearly fifteen years, she’s been in remission. She worries every day about it, damn near to the point of panic attacks, but she had a huge birthday party recently: She made it to 60.
I mention all this because another friend has been recently diagnosed and there’s no possible way, with her wherewithal and so much more, that she won’t do the same. That is I expect, one day, to be at her 60th birthday party. Of course, mine will happen quite a few years earlier and I may have to be wheeled in and reminded a few times why I’m there, but that’s beside the point.
We haven’t seen each other in a few years, though we’re in the same city. Life gets in the way, so it goes, so it goes. I think about her a lot. I did so before, but for some reason, it’s human behavior not to really connect until …
You get the point.
She wants to get her nipples pierced before the surgery. Hell, I say get them titties tattooed while you’re at it. Make ‘em look like the front end of WWII-era bombers, complete with pin-ups. Celebrate them, in all their glory, for the dates they’ve gotten you (haven’t we all done that at one time another?) and for the life force they’ve given your kids. Thank them, truly, for everything.
Just don’t miss them for a moment when they’re gone. My aforementioned friend said so, because you know what? She traded them for her life.
Plus, instant weight loss. And bra shopping will be SO much easier.
What, too soon?