Catherine Gigante-Brown

A midtown Manhattan studio was recently the site of liberation-both on and offscreen-when Shenshean

Content Notice: Death

I go for checkups when I’m supposed to: every three months to the oncologist and every six months to the breast surgeon. I go to SHARE support group meetings to bolster myself. I try to get enough sleep, despite the occasional night spent wide-eyed with dread.

I thought cancer was behind me. Until I had a weird pain near my left ovary which lasted for several days. It felt a lot like ovulation...Only, at 56, that train had left the station a long time ago.

I fumbled with my lace bra, hoping my silicone form wouldn't fall out from the left cup. I wasn't exactly ready . . . yet I was.

Were you going to run into that cute guy John Williams on the way home? Would you see Anne Marie by the lockers and sort out what to do for the weekend? It was hit-or-miss, and that was the beauty of it. The breath-holding chance of it all. Now, our kids’ friends are as close as a keyboard stroke away. It’s too easy.

I sat obediently in her chair atop four ancient copies of the Yellow Pages. Crossing my fingers, I prayed Catholic schoolgirl prayers.

I realized my father was from a generation that never said those three little words. He was saying he loved me without them. But I didn't realize it then.

In the photograph, my great-grandmother, Margarita Cirigliano, is sitting at a small table on the front porch of the family home in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

Why do we venerate individuality in adults but condemn it in children?