My mother died of breast cancer after living with it for seven years.

I remember distinctly the day my parents called me to tell me the news.  I was renting a room in a house in London, living by myself for the first time, and trying to navigate a new country, a new job, finding new friends.  They told me my mother had found a lump under her arm and received that oh-so-feared diagnosis.

When I hung up the phone, I felt completely confused, shocked and very, very alone.

But never mind all that.

The story of my mother's disease isn't about me.

It's about my mother, the star of the tale, who kept living her life as best she could, made brave decisions about what treatment she would tolerate, and integrated alternative therapies where she could, like massage with Arnica oil to help with the pain.

When Cortisone injections numbed her left arm, she drove one handed (she had no choice - there was no public transport where she lived) and still got out to the charity meetings that were a big part of her life.

She helped me with my wedding, arranging for her friends to bring flowers for my bouquet, cutting single hydrangeas from her garden for my bridesmaids, and arranging for us to get our hair done.   At the reception she sat, unable to dance, smiling and talking to friends and family, cradling her left arm with her right.

My family - key co-stars - gathered around her, cooking meals to bring to the house, driving her around once she could not longer do it herself, massaging her arm when she ached.

My sister went to my parent's house every day, checking in on them and, throughout all the years of the disease, taking on more and more tasks to help.  My brother drove up to help too, keeping everyone's spirits up and emailing me regularly to keep me up to date.  My cousin, a nurse, helped in all sorts of ways, bringing her expertise and constantly showing how big-hearted she is.  My father stood by my mother's side, this woman he had shared over 50 years of marriage with, keeping things going in as normal a way as he could.

Cancer is a strange disease, different to the other common illnesses that involve a slow decline.

Unlike Alzheimer's, the Cancer patient doesn't forget who you are or become difficult to manage - they are just sick.

Unlike AIDS, there is no stigma attached, no sense of shame or guilt that you brought this on yourself (a fallacy but, nevertheless, people do feel that) or that there is someone else in your life who is to blame for giving it to you.

But Cancer does have two things in common with the two diseases mentioned above - there are all sorts of side effects that come with treatment, and it is difficult to manage all the various doctors, options and medications out there.

So I was so pleased to learn about a new site for people on the Cancer journey.  

It's called Navigating Cancer and you can find it at www.navigatingcancer.com.  

As the site says, Cancer is a journey, and, I would add, it don't come with no GPS.

So, if you know someone who is fighting Cancer, or supporting another person who is, tell them about this site.

Because everyone touched by this illness can use a little help.

Ah, Varsity Engineers...

We're catching up on Greek, and a dorky Engineering student opens the door of Spitter's apartment to find Casey there.  Like Raj on on Big Bang Theory, he freezes at the sight of a pretty woman unable to speak.

This took me back to the Engineers at my University, back in South Africa.

I don't remember them being as dorky.  A lot of them had come through the Civil War in Rhodesia's conversion to Zimbabwe, had suffered the stress of a strange war, and were very, very into partying.  They were in a different country, literally footloose and fancy free.

And - boy! - could they drink.

The only thing they did better than drink was be pigs.

Disgusting, revolting pigs.

You could always spot an Engineering student - the bloodshot eyes, the stale hangover-breath, and the smelly clothes - courtesy of the same shorts, shoes and slops (thongs/flip flops) for at least a week.

The Engineers brought out a cheap-ass publication (photocopied at the Library and stapled together) every year full of dirty, sexist jokes.  Yes, it was funny, but it was also vile.

There was a woman Engineer in our res (dorm/residence) who took shit every single day of lectures.  

But there's always another side to the story.

Many of the Engineers were hot.   And their devil-may-care attitude was seductive.  

If you could find one on the day of the week that he'd actually showered, you were in for a good night of - as the slang was that year - "Shaping" with him.

So, yes, I schtuped an Engineer.

And, a few years later, I married one.  Except this one bathes.

Thank God.

I have no idea how or why, seeing as my parents were both early risers, but my siblings and I - back when we were living at home - liked to sleep, especially on weekends.

I have two alarms and I can reset them every half hour without any memory of doing so. It's my own particular band of sleep walking.

Only two things can wake me on a weekend morning these days: Fluffy Bear jumping on top of me for a tickle fest, and Puppy Dog licking my face.

When I was a teenager, I remember my father deliberately mowing the lawn on Saturday mornings right outside my bedroom window, with the gas mower, which sounded like a continous series of mini thunderbolts. I swear he went back and forth below my window for ten minutes. The grass in that patch was always veryshort. I had no choice but to take the hint.

My brother, when told by my mother to wake me up, had his own, unique, and very effective method. He'd pick up the entire mattress, turn it over and dump me on the floor. He was much bigger than me and no amount of squealing would stop him. I had a parquay floor with no carpet. Kissing that head first will wake up the dead.

But I had the odd moment when I could get revenge.

My sister was sleeping late once and I was bored, so I went into her room and started singing:

Wake up, wake up, it's a lovely day

Oh please wake up and come and play

The birds are singing in the trees (I never hit that high note right)

And you can hear the buzzing bees

Wake up, wake up... etc.

My sister had very long, expertly manicured nails. I'm surprised she didn't scratch my eyes out.

My mother was kindest about waking me up (except for when she despatched my brother). She'd come in at about 10, and softly say it was time to get up. Then she'd come again at about 11. At noon and softly tell me it was nearly lunch time. She knew exactly what motivated me.

Will move for food.

I miss my mom today.

I don't know why.

My mother died - many years ago - from a seven year battle with cancer.

She was an extraordinary woman and, I am very pleased to say, I realized this before she died and told her so.

My mother did many things that made me into the woman I am.

Making me well-rounded

My mother encouraged me academically, but also taught me an appreciation for the arts and for sport.

We would to go the theatre, to film festivals and to the public library twice a week.  She made sure I took part in team sports at school, but also took me to swimming lessons, dance lessons, speech and drama lessons, tennis lessons. 

The tennis lessons finally stopped when the coach took my mother aside and said:

"I can't keep taking your money, Mrs ---.  Your daughter will never be a tennis player."

Making me open-minded

My mother made sure that I experienced as much as possible in spite of our conservative, suburban surroundings. 

When it came to the issue of age, she took me with her when she volunteered at the retirement home, so I learnt respect for the elderly.  She made sure to introduce me to people there, and leave me alone to talk with them.

One year she sent me to a film festival with her friend - let's call her Sally.  Sally would buy two tickets for every film she wanted to see as soon as the festival program came out, and then try to find people to go with her.  She'd always ask my mom because Sally knew she loved that stuff.  I don't know why, on this particular day, my mother sent me instead of going herself.  Maybe she was busy.  Maybe she was tired.  Maybe she saw what the film was about and sent me on purpose.

The film was about gay women, and it was graphic.

Sally was mortified in the car on the way home, apologizing to me and saying she would have to apologize to my mother.  I told her my mother wouldn't mind, and I was right.  But I also learnt how much my mother wanted me to learn and be open that day, when I heard her tell Sally:

"It's OK, really. She has to learn about these things.  It's real life."

With the then-thorny issue of race, she taught me to treat the only black people I was exposed to - the servants in our house - with respect. I was never allowed to talk down to them or order them around like I saw some other people do in South Africa back then.

My mother had me take tea and lunch out to the man who worked in the garden, and gave me a duster to work alongside the woman who, throughout my childhood and teenage years, cleaned our house.

Although we were classified as white, and lived with all the attendant privileges, my mother made me understand and be proud of our family's mixed background.

"We," she would tell me, in that excited tone of voice you might use with a child when describing Disneyland, "are a Russian salad!  We are all mixed into a lovely dish!  We have all sorts of backgrounds in our family.  Do you know that you have a great-great-uncle who is Chinese!"

To me, it sounded like the most amazing, exotic thing in the world.

The value of friends

My mother led by example.  She had old friends and new friends, Jewish friends, Christian friends, Atheist friends, elderly friends and young friends, friends nearby she could stop by and have tea with, and friends afar she regularly wrote letters to. 

She would visit an old couple from our church who couldn't drive anymore, and take them to the grocery store with her.  She would invite an widowed friend - who was lonely and lived far from her children - to stay at our home for weeks at a time.  She held a back-to-school celebratory tea party with the local mothers when vacation was over.

Like me, she was an immigrant, and far away from her family.  Following what she showed me, I have been able, in both the UK and the US, to make a family from my friends.

Teaching me independence

My mother taught me how to stand on my own two feet.

It would take a lot for my mother to come to the school and fight with a teacher or the principal on my behalf. 

"You fight your own battles, my girl," she'd tell me.

But, if I really needed her - like when I hated my science teacher and asked to change classes - she and my dad always had my back.

Part of teaching me independence was to shatter the White Knight Myth for me.  Perhaps not so much anymore but, back in those days, women really did think that all they had to do was be good, kind and pretty and the white knight would ride up on this big white horse and rescue them, paying for everything as they galloped, together, to their castle in Suburbia.

When I went to university, a high proportion of the female students studied non-marketable disciplines:  art, speech and drama, languages, social science.  They used to call it "BA Mansoek" in Afrikaans, which translates as Bachelor of Arts in Husband Hunting.

"Don't listen to your friends' mothers," she told me.  "You don't need a good man.  You need a good job!"

The secrets of marriage

My mother taught me two fundamental things that help me, I think, to maintain a healthy marriage.

Mantra No. 1:

"Marriage n'est pas badinage!"

It roughly translates to "Marriage is not a joke."  What she meant was that marriage takes work, and any of us in a long term relationship of any kind know that to be true!

Mantra No. 2:

"Marriage is compromise!"

Well, that doesn't take a genius to figure out.  But we could all do with being reminded of that sometimes. 

If I want to drive half an hour out of town to go to a dance lesson, then it isn't too much for Fluffy Bear to ask me to drive him to a drinks get together some of his friends are having.  And no, I don't have to go with them - they have a hobby that I don't share.

Compromise.

The only thing I didn't learn

My mother tried to teach me how to cook, but I didn't listen.  She'd invite me into the kitchen to help her, to watch, to learn, but I was too lazy, or perhaps too stupid, to take her up on the invitation.

I never realized that she had an exceptional talent in the kitchen.  I thought all mothers were like her. 

I passed on the chance to learn how to make some of the best food I have ever had in my life.

My mother made:

• Cheese soufflé
• Prawn cocktail
• Chicken curry
• Briyani
• Creme caramel
• Macaroni cheese
• Marinated ribs
• Smoked ham
• Pepper steak
• Chinese beef with green pepper
• Venison
• Guinea fowl
• Sweet and sour pork
• Chicken with cashew nuts
• Tripe
• Chocolate cake - the best you have ever tasted.

And these are just the things I remember off the top of my head.

Even with her old recipes I am useless in the kitchen.  What is written on paper doesn't include the pinch of this and the sprinkling of that which she added to make a dish superb.

The only thing I can make well is the chocolate cake, and I'll share the recipe, below.

To sum up, my mother taught me well, and I will always be grateful to her.

I hope she's up there having someone cook for her while she sits and exchanges stories and witticisms with Daphne Du Maurier, Lawrence Olivier, Grace Kelly and the other people she admired.

Ittybittycrazy's Mother's Chocolate Cake

Mix together one cup of boiling water with half a cup of pure cocoa and leave aside.

Sift together 1.5 cups flour, 1.5 cups sugar, 3.5 teaspoons baking powder. 

In the middle of the dry ingredients, make a well.

Put in 4 egg yolks and set the whites aside.  Add half a cup of oil and the chocolate mixture and stir it it all into the dry ingredients.

Beat the egg whites to a soft peak, then fold into the mixture with 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.

Bake in oven at 400 degrees farenheit (200 celcius) for 25-30 minutes.

Thank you, Mom.