Having grown up with a family member that has cancer can be seen as the worst possible heartache to happen to a family member. Not for my family. My family remained strong and unbreakable all the way to the end.

My mother was diagnosed with colon cancer when I was in 8th grade. I'll never forget the day I was told she had cancer; my world began to spin and so many emotions took over my body. I felt scared, sad, betrayed, and lost. My mom was very ill and we didn't know how to support her. We all ached and felt nothing but sadness day in and day out. We worried as a family, feared as a family, and cried as a family. But shortly after we found out, things changed. We remembered that God is Good and can cure all illnesses. We began to fight together, pray together, and lean on each other. We learned quickly that this life was more than the cancer that was taking over my mother's body.

We started to support my mom, and be the rock that we knew she needed. We no longer hung our heads, or felt sorry for ourselves. We felt blessed, and cherished every moment we had together. My mother came to every softball game, and sat in the stands and cheered for me. She put me before herself and gave me all the love I could have ever asked for. To this day, I thank her, and will never forget that site of her in the umbrella chair cheering me on. My mom battled, and we prayed, and she battled some more, and she won. WE won. She was cancer free and our lives went back to normal, right? Wrong. We lived in fear, and worried that she would get sick again. But one thing we never did was give up. We continued to fight for her health, and pray that some doctor would save my mom. We experienced life together, laughed together, and loved together. We always lived in the moment and thanked God for the opportunities that we were given.

3 years later, the cancer returned. This time things were different. We didn't cry, we didn't sulk, and we didn't worry. We believed in each other and believed that we could win this battle again. We knew that my mother was stronger than this diseases, but she didn't. I saw the fear in her eyes, and the sadness start to take over her body. She began to get ill and we thought our days were limited. But she kicked cancer's butt, and proved that she would NEVER let something take her life away.

Cancer taught me that family is everything. It taught me to never give up on my faith no matter how much I wanted too. Cancer taught me that my mother is the strongest woman on the planet and that she was my biggest support system. Cancer taught my family that there was more to life than hanging our heads in sorrow and pity. It taught us that every day is a blessing and now we live our lives worry free because my mother is five years in remission.