THE TRUE MEANING OF BOOBS

Editor's note: I think I spoke too soon.

After announcing I'm back, our home computer started sputtering and coughing again every time I blogged. I lost two posts and what I could post took forever on our dial up connection. Since I have to be responsible and go to work each day instead of sit and home and blog, like I want to, I didn't have the time to figure out the problem.

So I did what any good woman would ... I bitched, and I ranted and I raved. My husband finally told me to take our credit card and get myself a wireless lap top (I've been saving for one, but for some reason the lap top fund keeps disappearing during tequila emergencies.) It was self preservation on his part as my rants kept getting closer to violence.

I now come to you on a shiny new laptop. I can't stop touching it. I think I might take it into the other room and stroke it later.

But in the meantime, I thought I'd catch you up:

WHAT MAKES A WOMAN?

I took a good friend in for a double mastectomy Friday. It is her second bout with breast cancer, and she's just 49. I waited for six hours until I could see her after the surgery, so I had a lot of time to think about things like boobs and what they mean to women.

For me, my boobs have always been one of my best features, entering the room a good 10 seconds before the rest of me. I have used them to get free drinks, get out of speeding tickets, or just to take the emphasis off the roll around my middle. When displayed properly and held up with the right bra, the girls have a power greater than any super hero. And I have had no problem using that power when necessary. Just call me SuperCleavage.

What would I feel like if I had to lose them, like my friend had to? Another friend told me she would probably feel less than a real woman. Breasts are a symbol of womanhood after all - not just of sexuality, but of nurturing children too, she said.

Being anti-children, I never thought of that. But it was just one more mystique hovering around this boob issue.

Then I thought of my friend in surgery who for the last few days had seemed much more comfortable with this whole boob, no-boob dilemma than the rest of us. She joked with me the day before how she had had some conversations with the girls and had said her goodbyes. The left one - the one with cancer - understood its fate much like a prisoner on death row. The right one - which was cancer free - didn't understand why it had to go because it had done nothing wrong. Why did it have to suffer because its sister had invited a dangerous stranger home?

The simple answer she had told it was that she wanted to live another 49 years. After two different cancers being found, her best chance of doing that was to say goodbye to both boobs.

When I had heard from the surgeon immediately after the surgery that she was okay, and he didn't find any other cancer, I whooped for joy. I knew this is what she wanted ... her body back, cancer-free. But part of me also felt guilty for being happy. I worried how she would cope and if she would feel less than a woman, like my other friend had suggested.

Then I saw her in recovery, and despite the lack of boobage, the tubes in her arm and chest, and all the equipment hooked up to her, she looked absolutely beautiful. She had been so brave, and that courage had made her glow to me. Her desire to live, to embrace life, and to do it with a smile on her face most of the week gave her a radiance. Her concern for others worrying about her, her want of getting back to work as soon possible and not skip a beat made her my Superwoman.

And I realized ... boobs don't make a woman. All the women I've loved in the world - all the women who inspired me - their boobs had nothing to do with it. It was these women's quiet strength, their amazing compassion, their passion for life and infinite capacity to love that made them amazing. The boobs were just an accessory.

Comments

[Maringuy]

I won't begin to try and understand this from my distinctly male perspective, but let me say on behalf of men everywhere that the boobs do not make the woman - merely accoutrements on the total package. May your friend enjoy another 49 years of womanhood.

[sandra]

My sister-in-law's mom has had two mascectomies in the past year (she tried for just one the first time -- and it came back) and she has that same glow. She's happy to be alive, elated to be part of her daughter's life, and practically bursts when she sees her beautiful granddaughter. So even without boobs, she's all mom -- and all woman.

[Leesa]

Wow..beautiful post.