“I will be 84 in September. I was one of 12 brothers and sisters. There were 14 of us living in our house. We had four bedrooms and made it work. My dad was a commercial fisherman and my mom was a housewife. In the 30s there wasn’t much else for a woman to do. Every two or three years she came up with a baby.  I learned from her how to be patient and to love. I started working when I was 15. I started cleaning motel rooms and was a live-in babysitter. I ironed clothes and cared for the elderly. My husband got sick in 2014. He had lung cancer. It was supposed to be simple but he never quit smoking so it got complicated. He died on December 15, 2014. My cancer at this age was so unexpected. I was helping care for my son’s children and found out I had breast cancer when I got my mammogram. The cancer is not bad because you don’t know you have it, but the chemo is what works on you. I have lost body parts, but the Lord is giving me the strength to get through. Just keep fighting and moving. You can’t give up.  After the mastectomy, I thought we were done, but the PET scan showed  cancer is by my collarbone. So now I just have to pray and get on through it.”