Mom’s Last Gift

“Your mother’s breast cancer has returned, and it’s metastasized to her bones,” said my mother’s doctor. “It’s…everywhere. I’m so sorry, Roberta.”

I clutched the phone, tears in my eyes. Mother’s diagnosis hadno cure. Worse, as a nurse of more than 20 years who’d cared for many end-of-life patients, I knew what her future held.

Even as a health-care professional, I had never really been able to do anything for my mother.