I was only sixteen years old when something really special and unbelievable happened with my family. It was a cloudy and cold day in April when my mother got home with an unusual expression in her face. Her eyes were red and her voice was sad. She seemed very devastated. My mom was one of the strongest people I ever met in my life. She was one of those women who would do anything to protect, to teach, to raise, to take care of and to give love to her children. She used to get up very early in order to clean the house and prepare the breakfast for our family before go to work. After a whole exhausting day in a hospital working as a nurse, she still had power to get home, prepare dinner, check my homework, teach me history and take care of all of our family with a smile in her face. I could not hide my worry for her and for what had happened to her. Then, I decided to ask about it even if the answer would hurt me. I knew it could make me feel sad but I had to know. The answer changed my life forever.
             My Mom told me that in one of her regular exams the doctors discovered a nodule in her right breast. She would need to have an operation to take it off and then analyze it to find out if it was a cancer or not. That was the reason for which she was so scared and sad. She was afraid to have cancer like her mother and aunts had. It had been a terrible experience for her when her mother discovered she had cancer and then the probability that she would be the next one in the family brought worries to her.
             Our family was completely in shock when the news arrived at home. I could not hide my sadness from the others. I did not want to lose my Mom at any age, specially at sixteen when a girl most needs a woman to teach her the values of and how to become a responsible, respectable, and adult woman. The equilibrium of the family had been completely shaken. My Dad was trying to demonstrate a fake emotional s
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