OncoLink - Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania

In 1991, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 68. Two years later, she was hospitalized from what her lifetime family physician called "asthma," only to find out the cancer had spread to her lungs. On May 2, 1996, my mother passed away from cancer.

The Glimpses in a Window Series was created during a time when our living room became a makeshift bedroom for my mother. To be hidden away in her bedroom was not my mother's style. There is not much activity in the home pictured in these weavings: a drawn shade at night, the televisions tuned into Wheel of Fortune, a cat in the window. Most of my mother's life revolved around what she could see or reach from her post on the bed. The coffee table held everything -- the phone by her side, a rosary, pens and a calendar to remember birthdays, doctor's appointments and lottery numbers.

Those years of watching my mother slowly die will always be with me. There is something I felt that can never be replaced. There is no love that can match a mother's or a time when you don't need her.