I tripped on the tiny staircase that leans against our bed for the Princess who lives among us, Ginger. I landed on my left side with my left breast taking most of the impact. Three months later I still had a knot in my tissue and I thought, “Gee, maybe I should get this checked out.” So this morning I sat in a tiny room bathed in soothing music and wrapped in a flimsy gown waiting for my mammogram and sonogram. Many thoughts swirl through my head and most of them have nothing to do with the lump in my breast. 
I’m really working through all of the recent news about sexual harassment of women and the believability deficit I see in the media and political circles. As a young girl, I can remember the early days of becoming aware of gender differences. It was the swimming pool. The boys get to swim in their shorts and without a bathing cap at church camp. Girls must wear an approved bathing suit and a bath cap. I hated wearing that rubberized bathing cap and I didn’t see much difference between my body and the boys bodies which swam feelingly in the pool. I learned early that my body was different and needed to be covered up from the world.
The awkward tween years bring another memory of church camp when the camp flyer said that girls must have a suit which covers their bodies and the camp reserved the right to decide if my suit covered enough of my changing body. The camp had a box full of t-shirts at the pool to cover us up with if too much of our skin was showing. It was a male camp director who made the decision if too much of our skin was revealed. My body matured early and so I usually had to wear the camp t-shirt in the pool.
High School brings all the joy of locker rooms and gym into my memory and the humiliation of changing into the mandatory school swimsuit made of polyester and nothing else. I remember the day the gym teacher said something like, “When McNaughton does the backstroke it looks like two hump back whales are floating in the pool.” In the bars of Aggieville, I learned that a flash of cleavage brought more attention from the college boys with offers of drinks, dance and prime seating.
Motherhood brought the joys of feeding my children and learning how to cover up so others would not be embarrassed by the sight of my children nourishing themselves. I also learned that male clergy colleagues were kind of creeped out when women would gather to talk about breast-feeding at conference events and that they preferred to hear about nursing. So I learned that language matters.
Fast forward to this morning and I’m reviewing my family history with the technician. I see the flashing highlight on the computer screen that my family has, “A strong family history of breast cancer.” I like to think of myself as strong but this was never the context in which I thought that word might be used. My sister is a five-year cancer survivor. She regularly sees her doctor and learns about her relationship to cancer at each visit. My sister’s strength during her treatment was remarkable. Don’t give her pink ribbon. She is so much more than a pink ribbon.
All of these memories and thoughts converge as I wait for the radiologist to look through the images which may change the course of life. In remembering all these things which are mostly long ago in my past, I never felt that I could speak up to a man in authority to say that his words or actions were wrong. Somewhere along the way in life I learned that I was supposed to internalize my fears, discomfort and anger. My feelings were my problem, my fault; not the responsibility of anyone else. I don’t recall anyone ever speaking up to say, “That’s wrong.”
The recent stories of women coming forward to tell their story of harassment or abuse years after the fact are the moments when women are saying for themselves, “This is wrong.” I’m breathing deeply for my sisters who are telling their stories. I am in awe of them. Keep on speaking.
Interrupting my deep thoughts, the radiologist comes in and tells me, “You are clear, nothing suspicious. Come back in a year for your regular check up. You are free to go.” Just like that I’m free from the worry of cancer but full of worry for the still silent who are still afraid to tell a story that nobody really want to hear.
into the house were surreal. Under a table by my Dad’s chair sat his SAS shoes which he wore almost every day. Those shoes were the tipping point for me in tears. The tears that had been saved up from the previous day were not to be denied today. There’s no handbook for this stuff. We just make it up as we go along. I left the shoes because I couldn’t bear to think of Dad not returning to those ugly, orthopedic shoes. Fast forward a couple of hours later and the second thing my mother does is move the shoes into the bedroom. She can’t stand to look at the shoes sitting in the living room and I can’t stand the idea that the owner of the shoes will not return.
Shelly Speaks Up 