No Cure for Cancer (Yet.)

"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother."- Abraham Lincoln
"A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest."- Irish Proverb

I painted "Brickhead" back in 1992. My mother was coming off of massive chemotherapy from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in an artery in her neck.
She had smoked most of her adult life as was the fashion for young peoples in the 50's. Smoked through all 11 pregnancies and smoked at the dinner table... it seemed so normal growing up that I never realized that it was the danger that surgeon generals are now required to paste all over the product in huge, warning, bold-faced type. Why anyone would want to smoke cigarettes at all these days is a mystery to me. Anyway she quit cold turkey when she was first diagnosed in '85, but had gone through various stages of it flaring up and migrating to different areas of her body and you could see it just physically wear her down.
This is the strongest woman in the world to me, and I think the painting was just a response to this horrible habit that held her for so long.
Anyways, two years after this painting,
she had to have a tracheotomy- which is basically the removal of the voice box, and she had to speak with this electronic microphone that projects she sound from the vibrations of the larynx.
which make her sound like E.T. a bit, but my daughter loves it.
She had a brain tumor removed just two summers ago and so far, thank God,
she's been battling on and surviving and appreciating every day she gets.
Did I mention she's the strongest woman in the world?
(I'm not even going to go into the 11 children- that's a whole 'nother blog)
So, giving cancer a point for stealing her voice, I still score this series as:

Mom - 4
Cancer - 1

Mom wins series!
Fuck you Cancer.
Hope science figures you out soon. Punk ass.

I love you mom-
Glenn