In the spring of 1995, the condition I seem to have been waiting for all my life finally struck me . So begins Jane Lazarre’s account of her transforming battle with breast cancer. Following in the tradition of her critically acclaimed literary memoirs, Lazarre interweaves her struggle with a life-threatening illness and other stories of recent and past losses - most notably, coming to terms with having grown up a motherless child after losing her mother to breast cancer when Jane was a small child. Lazarre draws her strength from her faith in the power of storytelling to make bearable the seemingly unbearable. Her bravely and beautifully written account of grief, illness and recovery is at the last a celebration of the redemptive possibilities of the creative spirit.