My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was nine. She fought through three rounds of the disease until the last one, when she finally raised her hands in surrender, allowing it to consume her—slowly—until it carried her beyond existence.
From my perspective, this timeline began when I was nine and ended six months after my seventeenth birthday.
I don’t remember much from the first round—the one that took place when I was a child—because back then, I was mostly a spectator and less an active participant.
What I do remember?
I remember my sisters holding my mother from both sides, walking her in circles around the house—from the living room to the kitchen and back, again and again—with a bucket nearby in case she needed to vomit.
I remember the sour smell that lingered in the house.
I remember my father sitting and reading a book, or simply not being present in those moments.
I remember my mother standing at the entrance of the TV room, where I sat staring at the screen, and asking me, “Iris, do you want to talk about what I have?”
And I, a nine-year-old child, transfixed to the screen, didn’t even look at her—just shook my head in refusal.
I remember sitting in “Health” class at school, listening to the teacher describe symptoms of a disease called “cancer” and slowly realizing how familiar they sounded—so familiar that I was able to complete the list of symptoms before the teacher even finished naming them.
That’s how I found out my mother had cancer.
That day, I went home and entered my older sister Lilach’s room. My middle sister, Daphna, was also there at the time. There was (and is) only a three-year gap between them—small enough to allow them to bond almost naturally as friends.
Between me and them, however, lay a gap of 9 and 12 years. That gap followed me throughout my childhood as a constant feeling that I didn’t belong, that I was a burden—an out-of-place puzzle piece that was there, but never really fit.
I stepped into the room, already feeling like an outsider. That sense of not quite belonging, of being out of place, settled in as it always did. And apparently, in their eyes, I confirmed it at that moment when I said:
“I know what Mom has! It’s cancer!” into the room, already feeling like an outsider. That sense of not quite belonging, of being out of place, settled in as it always did. And apparently, in their eyes, I confirmed it at that moment when I said:
“I know what Mom has! It’s cancer!”
I remember the exasperated, impatient looks on their faces—looks reserved for children who are “just seeking attention”. They must have assumed that I, like them, had already been informed of the details. To them, my statement must have seemed unnecessary repetition of what was already obvious.
But to me, it was neither obvious nor known—because when my mother had asked me that question, standing at the entrance of the TV room, I had shaken my head in refusal.
That day, in Health class, I discovered that my mother had an illness called “cancer.”
That it was a disease people die from.
That it belonged to the category the teacher referred to as “terminal illnesses.”
Those are my memories of the first round of my mother’s illness.
Then came the second and third rounds, though in my memory they are blurred together, so I will speak of them as one.
In the second round, I was 15. In the third, I was 17. This time, expectations were placed on me—expectations that hadn’t existed when I was 9.
I was expected to actively help and nurse her.
Lilach, my sister who is 12 years older than me, was at that point already married with a child and no longer lived at home. That left Daphna and I to split the responsibility of looking after our mother between us.
A schedule was hung on the fridge, assigning us each three days. My father, if I recall correctly, was given Saturdays, although I have a vouge memory that it didn’t work and eventually Saturday was given to us as well.
I don’t remember much about the specifics of my duties, other than that on my assigned days, I had to stay home and tend to her needs.
She lay in bed in the TV room—the same room where I had once sat when I was nine, shaking my head in refuzal. By then, it was no longer a TV room. It was her room. She no longer shared a bedroom with my father.
Beside the sofa, which had been opened into her permanent bed, sat an old golden handbell. Whenever she needed something, she would ring it.
To this day, I cannot bear the sight of a handbell, let alone its sound.
She was in pain. She suffered—both physically and emotionally.
She was a complex woman who had married a simple man. Only now can I know how lonely it must feel to share your life with someone who cannot even begin to grasp the depths within you.
I hated her. And I hated myself. And it felt as though the two hatreds merged into one thick, black liquid in which I was slowly drowning in.
I wanted her to die already. And I hated myself for wanting that.
She was a sack of bones wrapped in thin, translucent skin and I wanted a strong, full-bodied mother.
She smelled sour from all the medication and I wanted a mother whose hugs carried a soft, warm scent, with arms that felt like home.
She was consumed with survival and I wanted a mother who would be consumed with me.
Life has a way of throwing in our faces anything we didnt process. And so, more than twenty years after I last saw my mother suffering and was asked to care for her, I found myself in a situation that felt eerily familiar.
Because the details were different, it took me some time to recognize that I was, in fact, reliving my youth—only now from the other side.
This time, I was the mother.
This time, I was the strong one who had suddenly become weak.
This time, I was the needy, fragile one—the woman who, in a single moment, had turned into a child.
This time, I was the “sick one.” And the ones expected to care for me were my daughters.
Luckily, my condition was not terminal—just a challenging recovery after an orthopaedic surgery. But unprocessed memories and emotions don’t bother with technicalities. They focus only on the essence.
And the essence was the same.
The surgery I underwent after my motorcycle accident turned me, in an instant, from a strong, independent woman raising two daughters alone into someone weak, dependent, and angry.
Anger…
What a tangled emotion. Especially for those who are committed to introspection.
For those who turn their gaze outward, anger seems like a simple emotion. They feel it, they believe wholeheartedly that the other deserves it, and that’s the end of it.
But when self-examination is a constant reflex, that simplicity is lost. The moment anger arises, introspection kicks in, forcing a wider perspective beyond the narrow narrative of the moment. It compels an examination—of oneself, of the other, of the bigger perspectiove.
Perhaps, had I never been in that position myself over twenty years ago, I wouldn’t be able to understand what my daughters feel. Or perhaps, it wouldn’t matter either way.
Because, in the end, I find myself in the same place—hurting, dependent, vulnerable—just as my mother was.
The details are different, but the essence is nearly identical:
Once again, a woman is suffering—physically and emotionally.
Once again, she is alone, without a partner to support her.
Once again, young daughters are expected to care for her—too young to carry such a heavy burden.
Maybe there is no age where it’s easy to care for a sick parent.
Until this day I don’t get how is it that such a heavy burden was placed on such young shoulders. How is it that no one stopped and said “This is too much for her. This is beyond her strength.”
Or even just validated my feelings, allowing me to feel them without turning them into self-hatred that accompanies me until this day, for not being able to be there for her as she needed.
Today, after 43 years of existence, I’ve learned from experience that everyone is stuck inside their own ass—including me and only very few people truly manage to see beyond their own magnificent hole. So naturally, there were no angels whose sole purpose was to look after little Iris and her needs.
Little Iris was supposed to do that for herself. Except that was something she never learned—to take care of herself without feeling guilty for it.
The two daughters I raised alone, being a child myself, are not by my side in my time of need. I can feel how much I and my needs are a burden they don’t want to carry, something they just want to be rid of. I feel like a stone around their necks.
And this hurts. So much.
And this pain thickens, darkens, turns into a dense, compressed anger that I am slowly drowning in.
I want to call them out, to throw everything in their faces, to make them understand—to make them hurt as I do.
But then I remember.
That teenage girl I once was, standing there, wishing for her mother to die—not because she didn’t love her, but because she simply couldn’t bear the pain anymore. And hating herself for it.
A girl who truly wanted to be able to care for her mother, but it was beyond her capacity. It was simply too painful.
And there was no one there to tell her it was okay to feel that way.
That maybe it was awful, but also natural.
That it didn’t mean anything about her love, about how much she cared.
That it was simply unbearable to see her mother like that—weak, hurting, helpless.
And to hold her.
So I stop.
Stay silent.
And swallow it all down.
And it eats me up inside, slowly, piece by piece.
If only they could say to me what I myself couldn’t say to my mother—
“Mom, we really do want to help, but for some reason we don’t undestand, we just can’t.
It’s hard for us to see you like this; it overwhelms us with feelings we don’t understand, feelings beyond our control, feelings that scare us.”
“We wish we were different. We wish we could handle this. But it’s so hard to see you weak and fragile.”
If only they said that, I could give them all the love, understanding, and compassion in the world.
But they don’t.
They just shut down.
And I can feel it—how their hearts are closed, just as my mother must have felt mine.
I just need them to break the silence, to speak, to share.
For that closed heart to stop being the elephant in the room—the one everyone feels but no one dares to mention.
I hate elephants that no one talks about.
