I overheard my mom on the phone talking to her sister about the results of follow-up tests she secretly had done, and within only a few minutes, I understood. My dad had yet to come home from work, and my sister was away at college — I was all alone in my own personal hell.

Silently, I walked over to the kitchen counter and sat down on the floor, wrapping myself in my own arms. “Not again,” I thought. “Please not again.” But like many women around the world, my mother was forced to do something she didn’t deserve: face breast cancer head on.

During the next two years, each day was a battle between my mom and her disease. Being an unusually strong and resilient woman, she fought to maintain normality despite knowing what the fight would come to. The doctors said it was “incurable,” but my mother withstood many treatments in the efforts of proving them wrong, including surgery, more chemotherapy and radiation and clinical studies. She seemed normal half the time, but still nothing seemed to be working.

Then one day in October of 2010, my mother was told that the cancer had spread into the liquid surrounding the brain, for which there was no cure. At this point, the doctors gave us a deadline, saying that treatment was no longer worth the money and that she would have only a few weeks remaining.

During her last few weeks, my mother’s health declined exponentially. The first to go was the feeling in her legs, which made movement next to impossible and required hospice care. Next was her memory. One night, she was lying in her bed with my dad cradling her. Our family friends had come to visit her. They were playing a song my dad had written for her that they performed on their wedding day. My sister laid next to them, holding me. I could feel myself on the verge of tears, so I turned away, not wanting my mom to hear my breaths turn into sobs. In that moment, my mother looked over at me and we made eye contact. She said, eyes empty and confused, “Why are you crying?” In that moment, she had completely forgotten.

On Nov. 19, 2010, at approximately 7:30 p.m., my mother passed away, her hand in mine. In general, the concept of death is practically unfathomable. In some ways, even now, it doesn’t feel real. Because in a way, it remains forever as one big nightmare.

Unfortunately, it’s a nightmare that about 40,000 families have experienced in 2012 alone. Breast cancer and the things it can lead to are terrifying and always life changing. But there always is hope. Not all stories end like mine did. There are women everywhere fighting against cancer. But the first step is awareness.