I have to write this somewhere ...

One of the scariest sentences you can utter in a doctor's office must be: I have a lump.

Scarier still when your mother died of breast cancer at 58, having developed it when she was probably only five or six years older than you are now.

Mammogram and ultrasound next Tuesday and everything will probably be fine. Certainly. Everything will be Fine.

But.

I keep thinking, why didn't I have my babies 20 years ago? When I'm 58 my littlies will only be 23. They'll barely have driving licences. I won't get grandchildren. Can I make them have teenage pregnancies or is that too - ick?

You see how random these thoughts get.

Here's what I do when I start imagining the demons of motherless children coming to get me. I look at the things I really can see and I say to myself, I don't believe in demons. And I say to myself, I only believe in what is real: I believe in ugly floral shower tiles, I believe in this beach towel, I believe in the radio, I believe in oranges, I believe in chipped nail polish, I believe in soap.

And the demons? What a pack of wimps. They go away.

Bec