Wonder Breasts

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How impossible to imagine your mother losing a breast, the beautiful comfort vessel of childhood. I was scared to look. Helping Della in the tub, I saw her new breast: a scar, with just enough skin and tissue that she didn't look much different from any flat-chested woman. It was about the size my breasts were when we used to have our bathroom time. I felt shocked to realize just how physically superfluous breasts are.

Like most women, I have often felt empowered by my body, and also endangered by it. It was during the course of Della's chemotherapy treatments that I began to regard my breasts differently--to think of them as a separate and extremely vulnerable part of my body. I saw the horrid suffering they had caused my mother--the nausea, the pain, and the hair loss.

For months I only wanted to cover my breasts, keep them completely out of sight, especially around Della. I certainly didn't want to flaunt them in front of her, and I didn't want any attention paid to them. If a man's eyes strayed toward my chest I would scowl at him, suppressing the urge to tell him to quit eyeballing me. It took almost a year to get back into the Cadillac Bra and take it out for a test drive.

While I may be slipping back into my old ways, my next new tit accessory will probably be the unglamorous but much more important mammogram. I've finally come to realize that breasts are a huge pleasure and a huge responsibility, regardless of their size. I now look upon my breasts and feel what the Japanese call mono no aware--a tenderness for things beautiful and fleeting. I may be lucky enough to keep them, I may not. I'm not embarrassed to contemplate breasts, to admire them, to talk about them, laugh about them--or cry about them.

From New York Press (Sept. 13, 1995). Subscriptions: $25/yr. (52 issues) from the Puck Building, 295 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012.

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