When things go wrong, don’t go with them. –Anonymous

I come from a bloodline of strong, opinionated, bossy women. The largest influence of a man in my life was my grandfather, and he could only coexist with these nutty women - a few he’d helped in procreating - in short spurts and long distances. Since there was a lack of a residential Y chromosome, I cannot count the amount of times I was witness to a parade of naked flesh. The first time I ever saw a boob (taht-tah, milk sac, jug, or the like) and a vajay-jay (hoo-hoo dilly, mooseycat, vahj, or the like), I was a flat-chested, hairless monkey prancing around in my grandmother’s double D bra outside my E.T. shirt. Only then had I become a woman or been given a glimpse of the woman I could become.

Years and a B-cup later (thanks a lot, God), I joke with the women in my family about the episodes in my youth where walking into the bathroom only to find my grandmother on the toilet were normal. Or having long, in-depth conversations with my mother while she soaked and read a book in the tub and I sat, fully clothed, on the covered toilet seat next to her. I have never imagined these times as abnormal while you might be cringing. I also haven’t been scarred or sought therapy due to anguish or trauma either. I am fine. And I still walk around, bra-less, in my own house while my eldest tells me she wishes SHE had boobs, and my youngest points to them in wonderment shouting BELLY!, and my husband - raised by fully clothed women, all day, all the time - looks on in shame.

What does stand out is handing my grandmother a towel after her bath and noticing two, long, horizontal scars on each of her breasts. And since we’re an open enough family, I ask what the scars are for. My grandmother is a tough broad, so the idea of someone wanting to cut off her boobs because she talked a little too much smack that one time in Detroit would not surprise me. Instead, I was told of her cancer scare. How an overgrown gland was thought to be a cancerous tumor and, technology not being as advanced as it is now, left her with two, very large, ugly reminders of how different the end-result could have been.

I can’t imagine battling cancer. Of any kind. The mere thought of adding yet another ailment or genetic default to my already growing list of crap that could go wrong when I’m old just makes me want to get a shovel and start digging. Now. But then you hear stories like this, and Alzheimer’s, diabetes, hypertension or, even, those scars seem less than relevant.