Especially for Breast Cancer Survivors - Join the “From Surviving to Thriving” Tele-Summit for a five day journey where you will learn more about how to take charge and transform your life.

It's true that breast cancer changes your life. It certainly changed mine.

I have learned much through my survivor experience and now am thrilled to be a part of "From Surviving to Thriving" a five day journey where you will learn more about how to take charge and transform your life into the one you wish to live. It's not enough just to survive anymore, let's all THRIVE together!

Register here:  http://yourlifeafterbreastcancer.com/blog/surviving-to-thriving-telesummit/
If you register for this event you will learn from some Amazing Women Thrivers… I am so pleased to be counted as part of an amazing group of women who will share inspirational stories of surviving breast cancer to achieve phenomenal success while creating amazing lives on their terms. We will share how we overcame struggles and went on to create extraordinary lives. The details are below:

April 19 Finding Your Life Purpose Join us for two amazing stories that will leave you motivated and ready to become a thriver. Leave with the hope and inspiration you need to take your next step!

April 20 Following Your Passion Join us for an hour of "passionate pursuits" as we learn from women who have taken their diagnosis and turned it into a new path.

April 21 Finding Your Voice: Ever wondered how to turn your journey with breast cancer into a book? Join two thrivers as they share tips and hints on how to write the story inside you.

April 22 Being Unstoppable In the Face of Adversity: Hear from two amazing women entrepreneurs. Learn how nurturing an outlook of being unstoppable will help you take the next steps to becoming a thriver.

April 23 Turning Breast Cancer into a Gift: You will leave with new ideas and new ways to view your breast cancer journey, along with the inspiration and motivation you need to redesign your life and start thriving.

If this is compelling to you or if you know someone who this would profoundly impact their life, please join the FREE call. Registration information can be found at the following link: http://yourlifeafterbreastcancer.com/blog/surviving-to-thriving-telesummit/

February has always been a sweet month for me and not just because of the chocolates my family members know they better gift me with either.

My husband Randy and I were married in February, and this year we celebrated 21 years of marriage. I love him dearly,  but he’s not the only baby I’m wishing a happy anniversary.  I have a couple other babies-- close to my heart, and a little more personal.

Cause-- February marks the moment when a plastic surgeon assured me that he, and my other doctors wouldn’t suggest breast implants unless they thought I would live long enough to justify their expense, and the surgical procedure I would have to endure in order to enjoy my vanity.

The way I saw it, why bother if the only time I’d get to show them off was from a casket!

Of course, when I continued to pester him he admitted that as far as he was concerned, even a year should justify their cost. He was after all a plastic surgeon and not used to women who balked at the idea of breast implants.

Guess I’m glad for once I listened …it’s been sixteen years since Breast Cancer turned my life and future into an ominous question mark. It has been a long, mountainous journey, but the challenges, failures, and even what at first glance appeared to be rotten luck, are what have made my life most interesting.

I can laugh when I think about getting implants now. My husband advised, he had not married me for my boobs, and he did not want me to come back with Dolly Parton breasts. According to my plastic surgeon, that would not be a problem—“you can’t put a watermelon in a hole made for a cantaloupe,” he said...as he aimed a needle-- the size of  the one my daddy used to use on his cattle--at me!

Cancer was the beginning of living a life where I have worried less about fear of failure, or what other people think, and more about making what time I have left significant.

This summer I was reminded once again how one moment can change a life forever, and how lucky I have been. It happened while I was skiing behind our boat. I pulled an under the breast/chest muscle and was jolted into remembering that I have implants due to reconstructive breast surgery.

My implant had not ruptured, but as my daughter rejoiced in telling me, “those implants are old.” It dawned on me that when the doctors’ advised me to get breast implants they never considered discussing replacement surgery because they never thought it would be necessary. As my Oncologist so delicately put it, “you’re odds are okay, I just wouldn’t go to Vegas on them, if I were you!”

Happy anniversary babies— should of gone to Vegas!

Recently my family went to Granbury, Texas to unite with our children’s God Mama Rita who flew in from California, and her daughter Tushi, and family who reside in Granbury.

Granbury is where Randy and I were married, Tabitha was born, and we purchased our very first home together.

Twenty years ago I sat in that house’s living room on my pristine white sofa, excited and terrified as I wondered, how in the world I would be able to handle having a baby. Marriage was one thing, but a baby would be with me 24/7.

“You’re not going to be able to take a crap without that baby handing you the toilet tissue,” God-Mama Rita had laughed.

I was used to my independence, having my alone time, AND-- I liked it.

There was a reason I had a white sofa and it was because I didn’t expect children to be sitting on it. I didn’t dislike children, however, I will admit to surveying a restaurant’s dining area… even while pregnant, and informing the wait staff if they valued a tip to seat me as far as possible from any screaming brats.

These days the cries of screaming brats evoke only my sympathy and a touch of jealousy as my own brats are all grown up.

Only yesterday it was the new Millennium and I was in Minnesota, tucking my Dimple Dumpling, a.k.a. my son, Jordan into his bed covers, and asking, “Who’s the best little boy in the whole wide world?” He would reply, “Me!” Then at his request, I would fold his blankie “like a hamburger,” and tell him, “sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite you on the butt.” Then pinch his butt, and as he lay giggling, I would go to his sister’s room where Tabitha, a.k.a. my Baby Doll would ask me to sing her song. “I have a pretty Baby Doll her name is Tabitha…T –A-B-I-T-H-A… I would sing… off key. A song first devised to help my daughter learn to spell her name.

My Baby Doll began her first day back to class in 2010, as a college junior, and in June, the best little boy in the whole wide world will graduate from high school.

Today, I’m home in North Carolina, sitting on a leather sofa that’s a strategic shade of brown in a living room that could fit the entire footprint of our first home. My children have grown up to be competent, open-minded, independent young adults, and I often have to pinch myself I’ve been so lucky.

Yet, everything and nothing has changed. Once again I am both excited and terrified as I wonder how I will manage without those disruptive babies I selfishly thought would be an imposition to my alone time as they now began their own adult lives.

“You like being alone, you’ll be fine,” God-Mama Rita has advised me.

I now realize how excited and terrified Rita must have been when she moved from California to Texas. She left behind her grown-up baby boy to begin a new life with a charming, mischievous, man named Henry Orozco. Missing her own son, she took pity on the young, single guy who had the good fortune to move in across from them—my husband Randy.

Our lives have been blessed time and again by the advice of this amazing, self-less, sometimes crazy, devout Catholic, woman. God-Mama Rita enters this decade without self-pity and without her Henry. Her husband, our God-Papa Henry passed away this summer.

“Life goes on,” she told me through tears, “it’s the way God intended.”

So for God-Mama Rita, and all my other excited, terrified women friends as we face our future. May this be our best decade yet. Happy 2010!

Our tree is up and the lights are working, the house has been ( as my former MN neighbor boy, Andrew Toperzer would say) over-decorated top to bottom, we've made Christmas cookies, candies, and gingerbread houses, and St. Nick has come and gone.  Now all I have to do is my Christmas shopping. When Jordan was 5 years old he began writing his Christmas list for Santa in June and by Christmas had a total of about 58 items that he narrowed down to 12! Jordan is 17 years old now and not quite so greedy.  He's only got one item on his list this year so you would think my Christmas shopping would be done already, but I have yet to buy a single gift. So this blog will be short,  sweet and sentimental .  I thought I would share some of my most cherished Christmas presents from my creative children when they were still in elementary school.  Jordan is still a witty and talented writer (on the school newspaper staff )  and Tabitha's a gifted, award-winning artist.

I am off to do some shopping, baking, crafting and all the other activities that come with the season --and this year it seems "other" means ridding myself of a nasty computer virus that has infected my laptop.  Bah, humbug!

So what do I think about it and how do I feel? Well I do not want to lose my credibility as an author/expert so I will try and refrain from becoming a ranting, raving, lunatic, but I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.


November 16, I received a call from reporter, Julie Henry at my local NBC 17 news station here in Raleigh, North Carolina. Julie asked if I would give my opinion about an embargoed news release she had received regarding a new study about Mammography. She summarized what she had received and e-mailed me the information. Some of the highlights included:

• New recommendations from a federal task force recommend against screening mammograms for women between 40 and 49.

• Mammography is recommended only every other year for women between 50 and 74 years old.

• The report discourages doctors from teaching patients how to do breast self-exams.

Her news report along with a portion of my opinion can be viewed at:

http://news.mync.com/site/news/story2/44559/doctors-have-mixed-reviews-on-new-mammography-recommendations/

My indignation is not just for myself, but my children and especially their peers. The toddlers I wrote the book for are all grown up. The real Tabitha is now a young woman attending college and she will turn 20 this April.

She is brilliant and beautiful and has her whole life ahead of her. She and her friends, like most young people their age, feel invincible.

Unlike most of her peers however, Tabitha has been raised with the knowledge that she needs to be proactive when it comes to breast cancer.

Tabitha could have used this new mammography study as an opportunity to roll her eyes and point out that her mother is a worrywart and she has a good 20-30 years before she needs to worry about examining her breasts.

This is what bothers me most about this study. Young women with no family history of cancer, or as the study states it, "average odds", will think they have a free pass until they are at least 40.

Tabitha has been very vocal about her disapproval of the federal government’s new recommendations.

Like I said, she is brilliant, and I am lucky!

My luck began the day she jumped feet first, at age four, onto my lap while wearing cowboy boots. I put a hand up to protect myself and felt a lump in my breast. I had just turned 34 years old.

Back then mammograms were not recommended until you were 50 years old, and a self-examination was something doctors did not bother teaching patients until their real hair color was gray. Sound familiar?

This is what the federal government’s new mammography study is recommending we regress back to.

I am well aware the study does not pertain to women who have above average odds of getting Breast Cancer. The study is for women with average odds.

In my group of women friends, I was the geek who did not drink or smoke, exercised often, and was slim enough that I worried about looking pitiful once word got out about my cancer diagnosis.

As for family history, I was the first one in my family to be diagnosed with breast cancer. My mother was not diagnosed until almost a decade later, about the same time her sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

Up until the day I was diagnosed my odds were below average. Up until that day I, too, had been invincible.

Julie had read some of my press releases (Scroll below to Ten Things a Survivor’s Teenaged Daughter Needs to Know) and had a good idea I would not be thrilled about the new information regarding self-examinations and mammography.

I continue to stand by what I have written and advocated pertaining to breast self-examines and mammograms. My opinion is: when it comes to your own body, you are your own best health care advocate. Better to be a live hypochondriac than die of breast cancer. It is treatable if diagnosed early. If your doctor blows off your concerns and points to any expert’s study, find another doctor.

The American Cancer Institute continues to recommend mammograms for women age 40 and up.

You can read the federal task force recommendations at:

http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/News/Feeds/2009/11/disease-research-embargoed-news-from-annals-of-internal-medicine

Information about mammograms can be found at the American Cancer Institute at: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Detection/mammograms

On Wednesday I anxiously waited to see how my segment on Daytime turned out. Palms sweating, I sat on my couch and tuned into WNCN- NBC 17, Raleigh, North Carolina, the local station that airs the show, to see if I came across as the author/expert I am and not a blabbering idiot

Wouldn’t you know it? It did not air locally due to bad weather the night before that affected their satellite transmissions. I’ve no idea when it will air locally now, but stay tuned…..

I had a great time visiting the set of Daytime. One of the best things about it was the people I met in the Green Room.

I handle my own publicity, am not a celebrity author, and getting booked on a show with a national audience is not easy. The competition is fierce and most of the people you watch have usually paid a great deal of money for a publicity or public relations firm to book their appearance. So in my career as an author/publisher I have been very fortunate.

After my experience on the set at Daytime I realized just how very fortunate! All the other experts in the Green Room were beautiful, brilliant, and a size zero! Yeah, it was FRIGHTENING, especially those size zeros! It would be easy to hate them, except they were all so darn nice.

Instead I thought I would namedrop some of the people in the Green Room:

Frightening

That would have been me!

Sexy

Sexologist, Dr. Yvonne K. Fulbright : http://www.sexualitysource.com/companyservices.php. Do you have to be sexy to be a sexpert? My guess is, yes!

Green

Founder of GreenWell, Kimberly Button: http://www.greewellconsulting.com/. Yes, she was cute as a button. I’ll bet she gets tired of hearing that. I got to watch Kimberly film her segment, A Green Halloween , her personality really comes across and, she made it look way too easy.

Co-Founders and Owners of Green Nest, Lisa and Ron Beres: http://www.greennest.com/about_us.php. I would not be surprised to see this kind, and charismatic couple hosting their own TV show one day.

Twilight

Twilight Casting Director, Lana Veenker: http://castingscoop.blogspot.com/. One of the brilliant minds behind the blockbuster vampire movie Twilight. Lana was accompanied by her friend Sybil, who looked like she should be, and I later discovered she was—an actress. They were the whole package, beauty, brains, success, but the thing that struck me most about these women was how approachable and down to earth they were.

Halloween

Tabitha and Jordan are all grown up now, but I thought I would post a few of my favorite photos of costumes we did for past Halloweens. For more photos go to my Facebook Author Page:

Amelia Frahm.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

October is a bittersweet month for me. I love this time of year, dressing up for Halloween, the cooler temperatures, the beauty of the leaves as they change color.

October is also the month I lost my friend Laura Bouldin Karlman to cancer, and this October I am sad to write that her mother Barbara Bouldin's family has requested Hospice services for her.

Once again I am reminded why I established Nutcracker Publishing in the first place and I have been busy trying to remind everyone else.

My efforts have paid off and I have received some national press. This weekend I will be flying to Tampa, Florida to film a segment for the syndicated lifestyle and entertainment program Daytime.

You can read about it below in Nutcracker Publishing's latest press release:

#Beat Cancer: Author and Cancer Survivor Amelia Frahm talks about establishing a Career while beating Cancer.

Raleigh, NC---Amelia Frahm, the award-winning author of Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy, and creator of Crack Open A Book! cancer education programs will be in Tampa, Florida, October 26th, to film a segment for the syndicated lifestyle and entertainment program Daytime, on how she established a career while beating cancer.

“Somewhere along the way I quit thinking of cancer as my diagnosis and began thinking of it as my career,” says Frahm.

She will share with Daytime viewers how the courage, motivation, and perseverance she used to battle cancer prepared her for the rejection, humiliation, and even bad-luck she experienced in order to establish her career as a successful author and publisher.

A career was the last thing on Frahm’s mind when diagnosed with Breast Cancer 15 years ago. She was 34 years old, the mother of two toddlers, and all she wanted was to find a children’s book to help explain what she was going through to her children.

Diagnosed during a time when talking to children about cancer was considered unconventional, Frahm’s experience resulted in her originating the Nutcracker Publishing Company, and publishing Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tanerkous Mommy, a children’s book about a family surviving the emotional and moody behavior of  a mom battling cancer.

Her book was released in October 2001, and made national headlines when it debuted on the Rosie O Donnell Talk Show amidst an Anthrax scare that shut down O Donnell’s New York City studios.

Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy is recognized across the country as recommended reading for families coping with cancer. Last year Frahm’s company, Nutcracker Publishing, introduced a blonde pig-tailed Tickles Tabitha and launched the first cancer education school program, created by a cancer survivor, designed specifically for elementary aged children.

Frahm has appeared on radio and TV segments across the country, and is a member of the National Cancer Survivors Speakers Bureau. In August her story was recognized by the National StandUp2Cancer Foundation:
://www.standup2cancer.org/blog_su2c/2009/08/with_you_we_stand_-_81809.php

This October, she and Tickles Tabitha were pictured on MSNBC Today First Person at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33245310.
-end-

Breast Cancer: Ten Things a Survivor’s Teenage Daughter Needs to Know

Will my Mom die? is the first question most children want answered when their mother is diagnosed with Breast Cancer, but “teenage girls have other important concerns as well.

Five years ago, while doing an interview for the News and Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, my daughter Tabitha, who was 14 at the time, told the reporter, she just always assumed she was destined to get Breast Cancer and, “never thought I wouldn’t get it.”

Hearing her say it aloud-- I felt like I had been kicked in the heart. The first thing a Mother thinks about when diagnosed with Breast Cancer is how it will affect her children. The last thing she wants is her own daughter to be diagnosed with it, if there is some consolation it is knowing your diagnosis could help save your daughter’s life.

Tabitha is now 19, a college student at NC State University, majoring in (no surprise to me) Psychology.

To read our list of Ten Things a Survivor's Teenage Daughter Needs to Know, click on the Breast Cancer Awareness link below.

OCTOBER/ BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

OCTOBER/ BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

Hidden somewhere in my house is a video of a focus group or what we called a Guinea Pig Party I held a few years ago. It was my trial run for Crack Open A Book! It had great video of the Tickles Tabitha character with the children who participated in the program.

I was invited to appear on "Talk of the Town" a cable show on North Alabama's WYAM TV to talk about cancer education and promote Crack Open a Book! I had promised to bring a video of Tickles Tabitha, but I have been so busy writing, marketing et...I didn't bother looking for it until the last minute. So of course I couldn't find it.

As so often happens with me it's one of those times...I was busy trying to open a door and the window got flung wide open.

My family and I have moved cross country a few times now and the one thing we have always lucked out with is our neighbors! North Carolina is no exception and so the day before I had to fly to Alabama my daughter and our neighbor girls put together this video. It didn't take them all day either--they made it look way too easy.

When I fly home to North Carolina we're having a party to celebrate the debut of Tickles Tabitha and the Cancer Dancers!

“I’ve had a baaaad (bad) day.” That is what my son Jordan would say when I would ask about his day at Kindergarten. The look on my face, the pity, and the concerned mothering my “Dimple Dumpling” got after blurting out how bad his day was must of made him feel better.

Because for weeks there after when I would inquire about his day at Kindergarten he would reply, “I had a bad day.” Not near as bad as I felt hearing him say it.

I realized soon, but not soon enough for his father and sister, Tabitha that he was playing me.

So one day when I picked him up I bit my tongue and did not ask Jordan about his day. Tabitha and I still laugh about it, because it only took him a few moments to demand, “Aren’t you going to ask about my day?” “ No! Jordan,” his sister told him, “we don’t want to know how bad it was.”

I thought about that this past week as I watched Jordan drive off to school for the first day of his senior year. Not a bad day at all for him, but sad and bittersweet to me. The green eyes and dimples are all that remain of my chubby little boy and every day I have got to spend watching him grow up has been a blessing.

My children have had to handle all sorts of challenges, and living with me with or without cancer was not always a good day either. Yet, they have grown up to be the kind of young people that make me look good when it comes to being a Mother.

I attribute it to all those baaaad days.

If you would like to be trendy just ask me for suggestions. I have the dubious distinction of being a step ahead of convention, at least among the middle-class suburbanites that surround me. Which means I’m viewed as a dim-witted, oddity by the vast majority of the general public, and all my family members.

I’d like to point out not long ago Barack Obama was viewed as a dim-witted oddity, even without taking his ears into consideration, and look where it landed him!

Being a dim-witted oddity is how I came to own a publishing company. Fortunately, just about the time my company was established and my book went to print, a celebrity named Rosie O Donnell had become a cancer awareness trendsetter, she recommended my book and I didn’t appear so dim. My light lasted about as long as a match.

Trendsetting I’ve discovered only earns one admiration if you’re well known, well off, or not well acquainted with anyone doing the admiring.

I thought I’d risk public humiliation and write about a few of the trends I’m participating in at the moment. They’ve got to be worth writing about as every one of them have provoked some type of self-righteous indignation, or malicious laughter, and I’m once again being viewed as a dim-witted oddity.

Perhaps in another few months or years, I can point back to this Blog and prove I’m not dim, some people are just too blind to see the light.

Trend #1: My commuter marriage. We’ve been practicing it for three years now, my husband Randy is at present working at a 3M plant in Alabama while I live in North Carolina and our children finish high school. It’s not my favorite trend and not for the reasons you might think. Being an oddity I like to move around and I’ve been miffed, I’ve had to stay put.

Trend #2: It’s my favorite daytime guilty pleasure and I confess it’s the reason I don’t get much written some days. It’s not the soaps or the ladies on The View that has me mesmerized- that’s so yesterday. Nope, the only Squawk I listen to comes from the men of Squawk Box, Mad Money, and the Kudlow Report. Which brings me to…

Trend #3: My dirty little secret. It’s such an embarrassment. My husband would rather talk to his colleagues about my breast cancer than tell them this one! I’ve taken up Day Trading. Who knew math or financials could be so darn interesting? My daddy, who loves poker and has the reputation of being very good at it, always said, a professional Gambler never gambles. No, the professionals leave gambling to the idiots trading stocks on Wall Street. Oh, but I've enjoyed being an idiot, trading is just sinfully fun. I hold until I can take some off the top then as Cramer would say, I sell, sell, sell. I’m not the only woman I know doing it either, I’m not naming names but one of my dear childhood friends, had the courage to admit it on Facebook. She who had never even bought a Lotto ticket has been playing the stock market!

Trend #4: I’ve ditched the work out and joined the party! I’m attending Zumba classes. The other night I went to a Zumba party. This trend has probably been around for a while in the Latin community. What took the rest of us so long? Oh I know it must have been our children. After a little demonstration on my part, my children told me they never wanted to see “that” again and wished they could erase that visual from their minds. They’ll just have to get over it because for the first time in like – ever -- I’m actually looking forward to an exercise class!

Trend #5: “Crack Open a Book” children’s programs pertaining to cancer. It’s like
deja vu. As I received the same apprehensive response when I first penned Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy. A cancer education program for school children is a great idea- but is it really necessary?

Trend #6: My next children’s book. It’s taking me longer than it takes plastic to decay. I’m sure that’s a surprise to most my extended family members who think I don’t work, at least not a “real” job. Mine is an “imaginary” position, one where I watch the books fly off the shelves and sell themselves. With all that free time I should have been done already! I know it’s a shocker but writing is work. I’ve been at work writing a children’s book about nuclear power plants. Go ahead and laugh, but so you know, they laughed (behind my back) when I wrote a children’s book about cancer too, right up until Rosie O Donnell recommended it on national television.

Well Twitter this! Here it is almost Easter and I'm just now posting a Christmas photo and haven't blogged in months.

In February I celebrated 15 years of being cancer free.

I've been busy, but it appears these days you've not really done anything of importance unless you post it on line for friends, colleagues and significant strangers to read about.

Bragging, oops I meant marketing ones self has apparently gone main stream.

My pretty and hip thirty something neighbor sent me an invitation to WAYN.com, my friend, colleague and Internet provider Steve, guilted me into joining Linkedin.com, and my friend and former flight attendant colleague Debbie, told me to go to Facebook.com, where I can see all the places she's been now that's she's based in Paris, France.

Then there's Twitter- who thought of that? Had to be a man- a young, innocent and yet to be jaded by life man. "What are you doing?" What was he thinking, cause I'm thinking Twittering is going to get a lot of people in big trouble.

The problem I have with blogging is more than half the things I'd like to vent - I meant write about I can't. Well, I could but it wouldn't help book sells, win friends or make my family happy.

Oh, and just in case I get tired of sitting in the comfort of my own home, cozying up to the laptop as I Twitter other peoples lives, my friend Ellen was kind enough to yank me out of the house by inviting me to join Meetup.com, a network of local groups of any and all descriptions meeting in a location near you. All I had to do was go on line and type in my own zip code.

Tonight, if I can tear myself away from the Internet I'll be in Raleigh, NC, attending the Susan G. Komen North Carolina volunteer orientation meeting. It's not a meetup, just a meeting. Depending on how you look at it, I'm too busy or too boring to find time to Blog, much less Twitter.

In a year wrought with emotional upheaval, my mother-in-law Shirley Frahm was as always a pillar of strength, and after everything I’d gone through with my own mother, I did not want to miss an opportunity to let my husband’s mother know we loved her.

So shortly after writing my Mother’s Day Blog, my children and I drove down to Raeford, North Carolina, from our home in Apex, to visit her. I had to call first, because even at age 82, Grandma Frahm had several volunteer jobs, and a work ethnic that put people half her age to shame.

This would be our last visit before she was diagnosed with lung cancer, and I am so grateful I did not put it off. It was one of those times when I was trying to gift someone else, but in hindsight the gift was mine.

Our family matriarch died at her home Sunday morning, August 17, 2008 surrounded by the love of her family.

None of us were surprised she died on a Sunday as only Heaven could prevent Grandma Frahm from attending church. The world lost a good woman, and I lost an extraordinary mother-in-law.

By some quirk of fate instead of being saddled with the Mother-in-Law from Hell, I got the Mother-in-law from Heaven.

God knows what a guilty pleasure it is to complain about a mother-in-law, and I love to complain, but the most irksome thing about my mother-in-law was she didn’t give you anything to contribute when privy to a mother-in-law bashing contest. We all adored her.

Etched in my mind is how her eyes sparkled with amusement, the first time we met, in the kitchen of her house, as all nine of her children, the grandchildren, and a few family friends, traipsed in and out of the back door, and were proudly introduced to the girl, her middle son brought home from Texas.

My niece, JJ, was just a child back then, but she had such an expression of curiosity, reassurance, and pity on her face- I knew immediately I would love her- she got that empathy from her grandmother.

By the time we sit down, to say grace I had realized my future mother-in-law didn’t raise just one outstanding child, but eight others as well. After almost 20 years of being a part of the Frahm family, I still feel that way, and that is the miracle of Shirley Frahm.

I did not grow up in North Carolina, and very few of my Southern Baptist family members got to meet my devout Catholic mother-in-law, but boy, were they curious, and in awe of the woman who sired nine children, and one of them, a man capable of loving me.
I have always told them, “She’s they type of woman who raised nine children successfully, and could have raised nine more with one hand tied behind her back.”

Despite my admiration, it was not until March 26, 1992; I truly reciprocated the depth of my mother-in-law’s love. That day I gave birth to my son Jordan, and it finally clicked how difficult it must have been to entrust someone you love so much to another woman, how heartwrenching for her, and what a gift she had given me. Could any woman ever love the man as much as I loved that precious baby boy? I doubted it.

Grandma died with her tongue in tact, but it had to have been calloused from all the times she bit it and/or held it. She had a gift for diplomacy, and the ability to be nonjudgmental which I see in my daughter, Tabitha, and an innate goodness she passed on to my husband Randy, and son Jordan.

She also bestowed upon all nine of her children her arrogant good looks. Neither she nor her children are arrogant people, but they are a proud family, and never prouder than when they are all together. It can be a bit much for anyone not related to us, and some of us who are. As one of the younger family members pointed out recently, the Uncles are much nicer than they look.

Due to his arrogant good looks, I didn’t see my future husband’s innate goodness immediately. I had a Public Relations job at a nuclear plant, in Bay City, Texas. On numerous occasions I had bumped into Randy in passing, had nodded, or said hello. He had not as much as blinked acknowledgment. (I finally understand. My epitome came while raising our son.)

Outside of work, I couldn’t help but notice him at the local beach, he had a colorful catamaran, and he, and his boat were always surrounded by at least a half-dozen bikini clad sailboat groupies, which I presumed explained his conceited behavior.

While out with friends at a local club one night, an acquaintance, asked if he could introduce me to a friend of his who would like to meet me, and pointed to Randy. The poor man received an earful of wrath. I told him in no uncertain terms not to bother, as I had seen this guy around, and found him vain, condescending, and arrogant.

I was a 28 year old working girl, and friends, colleagues, most of my family members, and I had concluded I wasn’t marriage material. I wasn’t exactly looking for love when Randy walked up, and demanded to know why I would think he was arrogant.

I had never heard him speak until that moment, and it was the deepest, sexiest voice I had ever heard, and to my surprise- because I just knew he was from up North- he had a southern accent. It was before Thanksgiving, and he explained he was on his way home, to Raeford, North Carolina. Somewhere during our conversation he went on to drawl the words that changed my opinion of him, and ultimately my destiny, when he told me he was looking forward to going home and eating a slice of “my mamma’s pecan pie.”

A simple little sentence, he doesn’t even remember took my breath away, for in it he conveyed the love, admiration, and respect he had for his mother, and I knew intuitively this man would respect me too.

It would be months before we were seriously dating and a year later before I would accompany him home to Raeford at Thanksgiving- to meet Shirley Frahm, but when anyone has ever asked me when I thought I fell in love with Randy – my mind goes back to that night, and the way he said, “my mamma’s pecan pie” and somewhere in my journals I have written this down for my children. Along with the unsolicited advice, that the best indication of a good man is his mamma.

It’s been a year filled with emotional and sometimes turbulent life changes. I’ve been every bit the Cancer-tankerous Mommy I wrote about in the book- only this time it’s not cancer or Meds- it’s just me being my mean ole self.

My husband’s career had us in Texas last summer, but before summer had ended he was on his way to Alabama, and the kids and I back to North Carolina. We’re together, we’re just not living together- we’re a commuter family. When he’s not flying to North Carolina, I’m flying to Alabama or Florida where my parents live.

Our daughter, Tabitha graduated high school mid-semester this year, and enrolled in college. I feel fortunate; somehow I’ve managed not to run her off- yet. North Carolina State where she attends college is just a short distance, and Tabitha lives at home. She is majoring in psychology and plans to be a Psychiatrist. Not a surprise-she’s already done the research- as life with her own family isn’t always easy.

Some of my friends have confessed they couldn’t wait for their kids to leave the nest- I’m not one of them. I've been advised to enjoy the moments I have now, but I haven't taken that advice. I’ve been down right bitchy about it. My husband made the mistake of attempting to make me feel better by reminding me, in two years both children would be in college, and we could easily move to wherever his career takes him. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I was thinking it would be the first time we’d move without our kids. It didn’t make me happy!

I could pretend as a cancer survivor, I am exempt from such feelings, because I realize how lucky I am to have had these years- watch my children grow up, and grow old with the ones I love- but I would be lying.

I am grateful, to celebrate Mother’s Day this year, surrounded by my children, and with the knowledge my mother is still with me, but this year I got a glimpse of life without them, and was not prepared.

My mother, Amelia Patricia Solomon a.k.a. Granny Pat of Walnut Hill, Florida is alive, and while not completely well, is finally home after months in a hospital, and is recovering from a near fatal bout of Bacterial Meningitis diagnosed as Pneumococcal Meningitis.

I will not forget my mother looking at me, her only daughter, without recognition. Nor will I forget the the moment I knew she recognized me. In a year filled with heart wrenching good byes- what a relief when my mamma said hello.

This year I said good bye to my paternal aunt, Juanita Pacetti- a best friend, confidante and on occasion surrogate mother. High School graduation meant saying good bye to my little girl; all too soon she’s become a young woman. Faced with my mother’s life threatening illness, I was forced to say good bye to my own childish self. Abruptly, my siblings, and I were required to face facts- our parents are elderly, and we are now the grown ups.

It's been a year filled with emotional and turbulent life changes. I would like to write I have handled them with dignity, grace, and courage- but the older I get the less inclined I feel to whitewash the truth.

I’ve had to say good bye to people, places, and parts of myself that can no longer exist.
Undignified, inept, and scared is how I’ve felt much of the year.

Recently my 16 year old son, Jordan told me, (after a brief outing where I sat in the passenger seat while he drove) “You’re like one of those really old people who appear to be crazy – but it’s because they’re so old. Only you do it, and you’re not even that old- YET! You’re just crazy.”

Well at least I'm not a sissy.

One of the Mother’s Day cards I purchased this year reads- Mother’s Day Is Not For Sissies.

No, it's for women like me and the one who mothered me.

Happy Mother's Day Granny Pat!

www.ebonyangelsmc.com

Tickles Tabitha, along with the Chick-Fil-A Cow, and Ebony Angels made an appearance at the Susan G. Komen Fundraiser held at Bobby Murray Chevrolet in Raleigh, North Carolina, during October/Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I’m tickled pink to show off our Tickles Tabitha character and announce that we’re bringing Cancer Education to the classroom. Nutcracker Publishing is presenting CRACK OPEN A BOOK© the first cancer education program to be offered to elementary students.

We’re cracking open Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy; trying on wigs, playing doctor, learning about good manners, and character traits such as kindness, and courage, while discussing the issues that affect children when a parent is diagnosed with cancer.

I know many of you will be surprised to read it’s the first time cancer education has been offered to elementary students, but Tickles Tabitha’s Cancer-tankerous Mommy has not always been welcomed amongst the mainstream, and certainly not in elementary school.

In 1994, when I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. talking about cancer to my own children was considered a radical idea, and talking about it to an elementary classroom was un-imaginable.

Now, Tickles Tabitha is going to school and taking her book with her.

CRACK OPEN A BOOK and the Tickles Tabitha character will also be available to health care centers, cancer awareness organization, or anyone wishing to promote cancer awareness.

I know from personal experience that creating a dialogue to talk about cancer or any issue helps alleviate anxiety and contributes to emotional and physical good health and that's what CRACK OPEN A BOOK is designed to do.

When I published Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy in October 2001, I was advised, cancer was a niche topic, young women with children didn't usually get cancer, and no parent wanted to read their children a book like that. Despite that it caught the attention of the media immediately and went on to be recognized across the country as recommended reading for families coping with cancer.

While I received invitations to talk to students about reading, writing, or the publishing process, I was never asked to talk to students about cancer.

It's only within the last few years that public perception has shifted regarding some of the often whispered issues pertaining to cancer. Public figures like “Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts, White House press secretary, Tony Snow, and Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, have drawn attention to this change of attitude.

When I approached parents in my community this year and asked if their children could participate in my focus group, and told them the topic was cancer, they didn't blink.

After having walked a step ahead of the beat for more than a decade, I'm somewhat relieved to discover the mainstream appears willing to quit whispering, stop tiptoeing and start educating our children about issues surrounding cancer.

Yesterday was Mother's Day and I awoke to find a handmade card from my daughter on the breakfast table. On the outside it said, "Happy Mother's Day" and on the inside it said, "from the child who cares! Love, Tabitha."



I laughed, I knew she'd tried to get her brother, Jordan to help her with the card and he wouldn't do it.



Jordan usually comes up with a verse then Tabitha does the artwork. My husband and I have some wonderful cards they've created. But Jordan refused to participate this Mother's Day and his sister wasn't happy about it.



She's going to make a perfect wife and mother one day- I can tell by the guilt she helped me heap on her brother! So instead of a greeting card, Jordan was guilted into giving me a foot massage. I love being a mother!



Every time I blog I vow not to wait so long to blog the next time, but like most mothers my life is busy. I'm grateful for the hectic, busy lifestyle of a woman with children. All to quickly mine have grown up.



I miss having young children and it's one reason Nutcracker Publishing Company hosts, "Hunt for a Cure" a community Easter Egg Hunt where proceeds are donated to our local Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure team. http://www.komennctriangle.org



This year when the Easter Bunny hopped down our lane, he was joined by Tickles Tabitha.



Both my children were born in the spring and at our house Easter kicks off the social season. We've been celebrating and my waistline reflects it. I've enjoyed my children's birthdays, my brother-in-law Andy's retirement ceremony from the Navy, Tabitha's and Jordan's Confirmation, our neighbor's First Holy Communion and Tabitha's Prom and of course, Jordan's getting his driver's permit.



To be honest, the last two were what I'd call stress eating events, rather than celebratory suppers, at least for me.



Did I mention my husband is on a job located in Texas and he flies in only ever 2-3 weeks?



Luckily there's a Harris Teeter down the road and when life gets tough I get chocolate.



Happy Cancer-tankerous Mommy's Day!

Time goes by so quickly. It’s busy at our house. I’ve been writing – just not Blogging. I had a group of neighbor kids over and they were my Focus Group for some of the activities I’ve incorporated into my school program curriculum. My teenagers videotaped the event and the kids were so wonderful and well behaved that I couldn’t help but think anyone watching would think it was staged. But…then one child announced that her entire family was crazy and another agreed and told us that her friend’s Daddy put crayons up his nose.

My little focus group ranged from pre-K to 4th Grade. We read my children’s book, played games, discussed cancer, and talked about how it affected families. I didn’t have to define cancer to a single child because they knew what it was and several had experienced it first hand because a family member had been diagnosed with cancer.

Yesterday, in the midst of planning Nutcracker Publishing’s 2nd Annual Easter Egg, Hunt for a Cure, I stopped to watch Democratic presidential contender, John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth’s press conference regarding her recurrence of breast cancer.

It’s been 13 years since I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and I still feel queasy when I step into any doctor’s office for a routine breast exam or blood work.

Elizabeth Edwards was candid, gracious, and handling her recurrence of breast cancer with what I know to be a Cancer-tankerous Mommy’s attitude. She’s not going to be waiting to die, but instead is hitting the rode for her husband, and campaigning with cancer.

She’s not wallowing in pity either and I know cancer survivors everywhere sighed with relief when she announced her plans to continue to campaign.

Her honesty and candor about her breast cancer has helped so many families. Like the families of the children in my focus group.

A couple of years ago, it would have been unimaginable for me to invite the neighbor kids over for a school program party with a focus on cancer, much less enter a public school and talk to elementary students about cancer. Back when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, talking about it to my own young children was not exactly encouraged, and most well meaning adults tiptoed around the issue.

Next year I'll officially introduce Crack Open a Book©, Nutcracker Publishing’s Character Education School Program and I’ll be talking to elementary students about CANCER.

Thanks to the courage of women like Elizabeth Edwards the only tiptoeing around the issue I’ll do is a Cancer-tankerous inspired game called, Tiptoe to Mama.

HOLLA! Literacy Festival
Helping Loved Ones Learn & Acheive!
http://www.wadesboro.com/

I'll be guest speaking at the HOLLA! Literacy Festival in Wadesboro, North Carolina, Saturday, February 3, 2007.

I've been asked to talk about my experiences as a Publisher and Crack Open A Book©, Nutcracker Publishing’s new school program promoting Literacy and Character Education, and introducing our life-sized, Tickles Tabitha character.