Both Sides Now - Softcover

Pennebaker, Ruth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440229332 ISBN 13: 9780440229339

Publisher: Laurel Leaf, 2002

Synopsis

Liza thinks she and her mother, Rebecca, are as different as a mother and daughter can be. Liza, a successful high school junior, works hard at keeping her life under control while maintaining a positive outlook.

Rebecca, who gave up writing after her book was rejected, recently completed grueling treatment for breast cancer. When tests reveal that more painful treatments are needed, it seems to Liza that Rebecca has given up.

As the control of Liza’s once predictable life unravels, she sees her mother’s courage and strength in a whole new light. Perhaps they can share the pain of the unknown together.

About this title

About the Author

Ruth Pennebaker has written about her own experiences with breast cancer in The Dallas Morning News.

From the Back Cover

"Pennebaker writes convincingly in two voices, those of a mother and daughter each fighting the terrifying reality of mom’s breast cancer.”
–The Horn Book Magazine, Starred

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Both Sides Now

It's foggy and misty this morning, but I can see the finish line the minute I turn the last corner. It's about a block away. Lots of people are standing around it, clapping and yelling. There are pink balloons everywhere, and they bob up and down in the wind.

When I cross the line, a woman in a white sweatshirt and aviator glasses gives me a big pink button that says I Raced for the Cure! I pin it on my T-shirt while I'm still jogging up and down. I look around, but I don't see Mom anywhere.

So I turn back and jog along the sidewalk, watching all the people who are still finishing the race. At first, they're all runners like me--young kids, college students, middle-aged guys with babies on their backs. But the farther back I go, the slower people are moving. After I've gone four or five blocks, you couldn't even call it a race. It's like a party that's walking very slowly. There are mostly women in long, wavy lines with their friends. They're talking and laughing and pushing strollers.

Mom and her friends are almost at the end of the crowd. She's with three women from her support group. They're all wearing pink T-shirts and visors that say I'm a breast cancer survivor!

"Liza!" Mom's waving at me. I jog over next to her and slow down to walk with her and her friends.

"You remember my older daughter, Liza?" Mom asks the other women. She pushes her hair back when she talks, the way she always has. Mom has a very pretty face, with deep blue eyes and soft skin and short, dark brown hair. Even though she doesn't like to exercise that much, she looks happy today. "Liza's a runner--when she's not doing lots of other things. She's the real achiever in the family."

The other women and I smile at one another and nod. I've met all of them before. There's Barbara, who's short and peppy and probably the most cheerful-looking person I've ever met in my life. She almost always has lipstick on her teeth from smiling so much. Then there's Jeannette, who's taller and more serious, and Libby, who has pale skin and big brown eyes.

The three of them have very short hair, like Mom's. That's because they all had breast cancer and went through chemotherapy a few months ago.

When Mom and the other women talk about chemotherapy, they call it "chemo," for short. I think it helps to give something a nickname like that, so it doesn't sound as scary. Besides, chemo isn't as bad as most people think. It kills the cancer cells in your body and saves your life. That's what you have to keep telling yourself.

"You think we'll win the race, Liza?" Barbara asks. She winks at me, and Mom and all her friends start laughing. Right now, the five of us are walking so slowly that it's going to take a year to finish. They might have taken the finish line down and gone home by the time we get there.

About ten minutes later, we turn the final corner. The finish line is still there, with all the pink balloons flapping around. By now, it's gotten hotter, and the fog and mist have disappeared. The sun is shining, bright and golden and beautiful, and you can see the soft green hills in the distance. That's a good sign. I always look for good signs, and I almost always find them, too. It's amazing.

People are yelling when we cross the line. I think it's because we're practically the last people to finish the race. Mom and her friends hug each other, and they all hug me.

Around us, all I can see is a small crowd of women wearing pink. They move together and apart and together again, and their faces look hot and red from the sun. They're laughing and crying at the same time, in a way that's hard for me to explain. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before.

I hug Mom again. She's laughing and crying, like the rest of the women. For a few seconds, I don't know what to say.

What should I say? The day's beautiful and we've finished the race and I feel so happy to be alive--like something wonderful's going to happen any minute now. Something wonderful's going to happen, bursting out of nowhere, the way the sun just came out. Everything is going to be all right. It's such a strong feeling, like a surge of something very powerful, that I know it must be true. I wish I could explain it better. I wish I could make Mom and her friends understand. I wish I could make everybody in the world understand.

"Let's go, babe," Mom says. She stretches her arms up, over her head, and grins at me. "I need to get to the closest shower. It's an emergency."

I drive us home. I got my learner's permit last summer, and I'm starting driver's ed classes this week, so I need to practice driving as much as I can. The trouble is, I don't have very good depth perception. That's why I have this bad habit of running over curbs. Dad says I shouldn't worry about it, though. It's a bad habit to focus on mistakes, because that's negative. As long as I act like I have confidence in my driving, I'll start to feel it, he says.

Edition details

• Publisher: Laurel Leaf
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0440229332
• ISBN 13: 9780440229339
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 224