SUPERPOWER? NO SO MUCH......

Superpowers? What jumps to my mind in the blink of an eye? Initially, the obvious choices. The ever popular selection of beauty pagaent contestants everywhere: world peace is high on the list. Perhaps higher still, a cure for every disease that plagues the human race. That would be in keeping with health writing activism. But those are unattainable. Come to think of it, my heart's desire is equally impossible.

As I sit in the waiting area of the hospital, my son on the side of the operating room door usually reserved for me, there can be only one superpower that even comes remotely close. Why should any mom, indeed any parent ever have to nurse a child from anything more than the common cold, an occasional ear infection or the flu? I would trade my soul to be the one with the lousy gall bladder.

I don't like the waiting family member role. Selfishly, I've come to enjoy knowing I will be asleep within a nanosecond of hearing those words, "Take a deep breath, I am going to start your IV." As I feel the warmth of the drugs hit my bloodstream, the hand wringers have already begun their ritual. As a mom, I want to have the power to switch roles. Not looking to put my kids into a bubble of "mom will take on every little ache, pain and heartbreak" but jeez, I'd like to take on The Big Stuff.

And so I sit, surrounded by many other hand wringers. Waiting. Hoping my name is the next one called. And I reflect. My mom did this hand wringing while I was the guest star no less than seven times during my breast cancer journey. She surely should have been the one bestowed with this very special power. I can still hear her words, feel her arms around me, tears streaming down both of our faces, "How I wish I could do this for you." She paved the way twenty years earlier and she would have walked the path again. If only she had the power.