So often when we talk about Breast Cancer, we focus on pink ribbons, fundraising, and cures for the disease. All of these things are important no doubt, but what I hope we will all spend more time focusing on is how we love and care for our friends when they need us.
The truth is when most of us think about Breast Cancer, we think of it as something that afflicts post-menopausal women past the (dating) prime of their lives. We see these women as aunts, mothers, or grandmothers who have the love and support of their families to help them get through it all.  We see it as somewhat expected.

I saw this play out keenly with my friend Francene Robinson who died of Triple Negative Breast Cancer on June 5, 2009 at the age 58. I see this playing out with my friend Venessa Bates who has just been diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer and she is in her mid 50’s. Both of these sisters are blessed with great husbands, a supportive community of friends and family and a legacy of love that endures.

These women come from an era seemingly long gone where sisters and their husbands truly rally and take care of each other in time of need.  When my friend Fran got very sick in the last months and weeks of her life, I sat in awe at how her sister friends stepped up—many of them in the Links, Jack & Jill or in the Black Greek Lettered Fraternities.

They had cleaning schedules, hospital visit schedules, meal schedules, grocery rotations, and the like.  They did it to ensure that Fran’s husband Henry and her two sons had no worries other than to be by her side day and night.  It was moving to me as a woman in my early 40s, who is not married and has no children.  

The most glaring thing that jumps out as me, however, is when I think of Breast Cancer and how it is impacting and raving the lives of young black women. I have one dear friend Nicole McLean who has been fighting Breast Cancer since she was in her late 30s. And like many of you, I learned of the loss of Ms. Sheryl Flowers (of the Tavis Smiley Group) who was only 42 (my age) to Triple Negative Breast Cancer in June when I had just signed my book deal with Smiley Books.

What I want us to stop and consider this October as my sister organization (I Am My Sister’s Keeper/iask, Inc.)  will do as we partner with Circle of Promise and remember the fight against Breast Cancer; is to focus on those women who are fighting this disease under age 40 and who have no one to comfort them.  

The fact is women who are still menstruating and healthy under the age of 40 get Breast Cancer.  And it is a devastating thing to endure and also try to maintain a healthy dating and social life. As my friend Nicole so candidly put it on her national blog “My Fabulous Boobies”:

“I do not want to live the rest of my life alone. But at the same time, I am absolutely terrified of putting my feelings, emotions and everything else on the line and end up disappointed. Dating was crazy and hard before breast cancer. Today, it is compounded by the fact that (God-willing) I will be living with the after-effects of having breast cancer for the rest of my life. There will always be some concern, some fear… some nagging something that will linger around my life and have to be dealt with head-on.  The question that lingers is… if it was hard to accept that someone could stick with me through my very “Nicole-ness” before cancer… my goodness, who is that man who will be willing to take on that PLUS millions of doctor visits, unexpected medical bills, fatigue, body changes and so on? This is REAL LIFE STUFF and it’s serious.”


I am convinced that part of the reason Fran lived as long as she did is not because of the chemo drugs, or the excellent care that Dr. Edith Mitchell (Medical Oncologist & Associate Director of Diversity for the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, PA.) provided her but it was because of the circle of love, prayers and support she received on a daily basis from her loved ones and her sister friends.

As someone who has suffered with a difficult auto-immune disease since I was 36, I know what it is like to endure such an unexpected and life changing diagnosis.  I want all women to have the circle of love and support that Fran & Venessa have as two older married women. Not just in theory but in practice.

It is my hope that all of us who know a sister who is fighting Breast Cancer alone, will step up and reach out to her on a regular with cards, gifts, time, calls, food baskets, and the like; and by doing so I promise you that you will prolong her spirit, her journey and her life.

Being Your Sister’s Keeper When Cancer Strikes By Sophia A. Nelson

(Reprint from Essence.com)