My God mother, Celina Alvarez, battled with breast cancer during the pandemic. She was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in July of 2021.

My family and I were over her house for dinner one night, excited to be together for once. She lives in Pasadena, so my mom used to complain about the traffic driving over there. I would nod when she would, but when she turned her head, I would look out the window to the trees and turn up my volume on my earphones. I’ve always loved long car rides.

After dinner was over, I stayed at the table, admiring her house. It was always so vibrant and homey. Whether it was art pieces hung all over her house or her wooden floors I ran my fingers on, it was the place that never made me feel out of place. No matter how many days I overstayed but she swore it didn’t matter.

She told me has been diagnosed with breast cancer and I think for a straight minute everything around me had stopped. My nina helped me discover who I was. In a way, she was a mentor. Seeing one of the strongest women I have ever known looking up at me with exhaustion terrified me.

She walked me through her treatments.

“I worked the entire time (from home and no more than 8 hours), hiked/walked daily, started sleeping 8 hours, started acupuncture, equine therapy and got back into talk therapy,” she said. “I was also practicing other holistic methods and approaches towards mitigating all the cancer/chemo ickiness.”

She said that entering chemotherapy was one of the hardest things she’s ever done. I remember at the beginning of her journey, she would take precaution and safety regarding her body. As the holidays passed slowly, I saw the toll chemo took on her.

She slowly lost her hair and lost a lot of weight. My nina, a woman I saw as a role model my entire life who took me under her wings when I had lost myself, had suddenly looked so fragile.

“My body was missing nourishment in ways I can’t explain,” she said. “I lost 13 pounds. Even though shedding 13 pounds was actually not a bad thing, the way it happened was not exactly as I would have liked.”

As the months passed, she found someone who helped her on this road. She had met her acupuncturist who also had breast cancer. They had the same stage and same treatment protocol. She was two months ahead of my nina.

When she met her, she was preparing for her double mastectomy.

“It’s like she was divinely placed in my life to serve as a compass and reassurance of what is ahead for me,” she said.

She said that the worst part of the whole thing was “facing my own mortality.”

“Engaging in death and dying conversations with my kids and partner, and everything else that comes with it,” she said. “That’s when I really have to reach for my arsenal of tools and peeps to lean on. “

I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling. She was always this place of warmth I went to and shoulder to lean on. I thought back to the sleepovers I had at her house and the breakfast of eggs and bacon she cooked for me.

I found myself praying. That was something I had never done before. Being in the middle of a pandemic in middle school with nothing but time to think had me in a place of desperation. Who was I supposed to talk to?

I once went to a doctor’s appointment and I had never hated and loved a place so much before. “The doctors were going to help her,” I told myself. Why did this have to happen to her? I was angry at life but she had to get better, she just had to.

She went to war with this and she made it through. She thrives so far. She travels, parties and enjoys her days on her couch with her grandson “Siquitito bonito”. Whether it is a breakfast brunch she took me out on as a late birthday celebration or posting on instagram, she is alive and thankful for everything.