I was about to fall asleep when my mom walked into my room and sat down on my bed. "I have something to tell you," she said. "I went to the hospital and they told me I have Breast Cancer."

"Okay," I said. And that was it. She put her hand on my shoulder and just sat there with me on my bed. It was night and in that little one-window room, it was dark. Light filtered vaguely onto her back from the hall and I was on my side facing the wall. I couldn't see her, but if I could've I'm sure she would have appeared as a silhouette against the light from my door; no features just her outline. I think she was scared.

At that time, I was young but plenty old enough to understand everything I was told. I knew random medical facts and probably had a good idea of the consequences of different diagnoses. I knew things. But even then, in high school, everything was so solid. Yes, something bad could happen but it wouldn't because it was my mom; not someone on television. We weren't talking about someone on the news here.

So after a few minutes she left. She just squeezed my shoulder a bit and left, and then I turned over. My mind wasn't going fast. I wasn't scared. I quickly reasoned that in this day and age they would be able to solve something like this. I lived in a house near Dartmouth College and we had easy access to their state of the art hospital: The Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. They would take care of it, I thought.

But really, that night, despite its pure subtlety, an event occurred in my room that would change my life in ways far beyond what my high school brain could imagine. But that night, precisely because of its subtlety, I went to sleep like any other. For years later, I wouldn't understand the full implications of the little shoulder squeeze, or the moments after when she sat silently behind me, but I would start to feel them just days later when people started asking the question. "How's your mom?"