The Power of Hope

Gazing at my haggard visage in the bedroom mirror that morning in 1991, I didn't know which was worse—the way I felt or the way I looked.

In a sense they were one and the same, each a reflection of the other. I had just undergone a punishing round of chemotherapy following a double mastectomy for breast cancer, and doctors had warned me that I would probably have to undergo a second round.

I looked decades older than my 33 years. My skin sagged and my face was ashen. Dark circles shadowed my sunken eyes.

I stepped out into the backyard and sat on an oak bench beneath an orange tree. Half a dozen house finches twittered in its branches. The roses were in full bloom, their fragrance mingling with the potent smell of herbs in my garden. Amidst all that beauty I felt so sick and ugly, so alone.

Not that I was fighting cancer on my own. Michael, my husband, held me for hours at night when I was nauseous from the chemo. My boys, Christopher, seven, and Nicholas, five, showered me with hugs and kisses.

I belonged to a cancer support group and I attended church daily. Yet each morning after Michael left for work and I walked the boys to school, I came home from early Mass and was alone with my illness—and my fear.

My mother died of breast cancer, my father of a brain tumor. Increasingly, I found myself preparing for my own death. Being taken from my sons was the loneliest thing I could imagine, and even on this bright warm day the thought made me cold deep down inside.

I must do something positive! I told myself, remembering the encouragement we gave each other at my support group. Running my fingers over my face, I suddenly recalled my Italian grandmother and how she had given me wonderful facials when I was a little girl.

Maybe the redolence of the garden had drawn that memory to the surface. Grandma had steeped rose petals and herbs in a pot of steaming water, then held my face over the warm vapors. Afterward, when I looked in the mirror, my cheeks were as rosy as dawn.

Why not try it? I thought. If I could make myself look healthier, maybe I would feel healthier. I went inside and got out my mother's old ravioli pot. I heated water, then gathered herbs and rose petals from the garden to simmer.

I steamed my face, just as Grandma used to do, made a paste from the mixture and applied it to my skin. After about 10 minutes I rinsed it off and looked in the mirror.

The same ravaged face stared back at me. I was a fool to think a few flowers and plants could do anything. I wasn't a little girl anymore, playing with my grandmother. I was a woman who had cancer and looked as if she were going to die.

Yet for reasons I still can't explain, I became obsessed with finding a combination of natural ingredients that would make me look better, even as I began to feel worse from the second, stronger round of chemotherapy.