The Cancer Christmas Photo

In the year of my first breast cancer, we wanted to have a commemorative photo done. It surely was a time to remember.

We rarely write newsy Christmas letters during the holidays. I have a habit of simply buying Christmas cards and signing our names on them. I admire folks who compose long family stories, espousing a successful year of fun trips and great accomplishments such as graduations, births and new abodes.

The reason I avoid these is because I don’t have the time, and I don’t like to brag. You’d think that I, being a writer, would jump on the Christmas letter bandwagon, but I never do.

I also avoid taking family pictures against fake holiday backdrops such as fireplace mantels or Christmas trees. But in 2012, the year I lost my hair due to chemotherapy for breast cancer, I decided that we needed to give our family and friends a fitting portrait of us, to show them that I was still kicking and alive and everyone else was too. I booked a photo shoot at a local photography studio, bought a red blouse for me and red sweaters for my husband and son, and washed my wig with a special wig shampoo that I’d bought at the cancer center.

Now, about this wig. It was brown, a longish, swingy style that was parted in the middle. It looked nice on me. My mother-in-law declared that she liked it better than my real hair, the brown, thick curly hair that had fallen out. This compliment was double-sided. With it, she was saying that the wig looked good, but my real hair –- not so good. But that’s how she rolled.

Soon, the day came to go to the photography studio. My family, all dressed up in red, piled in the car and drove downtown. It was my idea to sing Christmas carols on the way. We crooned “Jingle Bells,” “Away in a Manger,” “Frosty the Snowman” and several others. My son was 7 years old at the time, so he appreciated any attention we could give to the holiday season.

My cancer had overshadowed the holiday, but not that day.

We arrived at the studio and went in. Oh my goodness, the place smelled like scented peppermint pinecones, and it was decorated with hundreds of little white lights. I liked the festive atmosphere, as it was about three weeks before Christmas. We’d get the photos taken, get them back in about a week and mail them to family and friends by Christmas.

We would present a happy, healthy group of people to our personal community. My wig would hide any sign of the effects of cancer. The blush on my pale cheeks would make me look healthy. The clothing I had chosen would hide the extra weight I’d put on due to inactivity. Yes, we were a perfect family, weren’t we?

The photographer was a hoot. She was older, around 70, with white hair swirled up in an updo in the back. She wore a turquoise pantsuit and had terrifically red fingernails. Around her neck hung a string of old-fashioned Christmas tree light bulbs, the big, plump kind: red, green, blue and yellow. They did not blink, only glowed.

“You’re here for your Christmas photo,” the photographer said.

“Yes. I have cancer, so we want it to be extra special,” I told her.

“Gotcha,” she said. “I’m sorry to hear about your illness.”

“Thank you.”

She directed us to a backdrop – a snowy field full of red and green lollipops sticking up out of the white, dusty snow. “How is this screen?”

I didn’t like it. “Do you have a simple Christmas tree?”

“Sure.” She pulled the field of holiday lollipops up and pulled down a screen with a tree on it, which I liked better.

Then she began posing us. She had me sit on the floor. My God, it was hard getting down to the ground. What in the heck did she have in mind?

“Now, bend your knees,” she said casually.

Was she a sadist? Strangely enough, I didn’t protest her strange desire to make me look ridiculous. I think it was because I was defeated by the cancer, and I didn’t have any fighting will or strength to complain.

“Now, you son, you get behind her. And Dad, you kneel down next to her.”

This had to be the most horrible photo shoot I’d ever been a part of.

And then she was off, soon behind the camera, clicking shots of us, telling us to smile.

I was so uncomfortable, but I managed to grin. My son Tommy smiled widely, and my husband Stephen did the same.

This was my Christmas cancer photo. Needless to say, we didn’t send them to everyone we knew. When we got them back, we looked at them and laughed.

And now when I want to remember my time with cancer, I pull out the photo and harken back to that strange time.

We did send one of the photos out – to my mother-in-law.

Upon receiving it, she picked up the phone and called me.

“Nice photo,” she said. “Great wig. You should wear it all the time. It’s nicer than your real hair.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “Merry Christmas.”

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