Sydney's Wardrobe:
Issa long halter dress

For the Benefit of the Breast
An Ode

Oh, miraculous makers of milk, how you magically metamorphose your caloric contents and adapt to the singular nutritional requisite of your baby beneficiary…

And as a pre-pubescent pining, even the youngest of girls have pranced around like a lady-in-waiting in their Superwoman or Powderpuff training bra in your honor, aspiring one day to blossom into the voluptuously well-endowed women the world wants them to be.

Oh, and yes. Objects of sensual desire, of course, whether as an ever-present after-effect of Sigmund’s orally fixated and generally breast-obsessed culture matters not, for the crux of it all remains: Our society -- and most others, for this matter -- places the loftiest of ideals on those two, strategically placed spheres that give a woman the shape of such, and a man, reason to lust.

Pray tell, then, what becomes of the self-seen stature of a sister when the oncologist closes the office door with a somber swoosh, indicating without so much as a syllable the sum total of a pathology report?

They say that “breast is best,” but what happens when … it isn’t?

Blessed thus far with the gift of lumpless breasts, I simply cannot begin to fathom the feeling, but a few of my most fabulous and loved have endured such an emotion, and, when asked what, exactly it is that is evoked when that most terrifying term passes a doctor’s lips, it is ….

“Surreal.”

October has been dedicated for National Breast Cancer Awareness. This month, flaunt ‘em if you’ve got ‘em, but love, laugh, cry, but most importantly, hope, with those who now face a far different image in her bathroom mirror.

Race for the Cure with Susan Komen. Lick a Yoplait yogurt lid and send it in. Place a pink ribbon by your heart. Symbolize solidarity and speak directly to the hearts of 1.4 million who will be diagnosed this year, because this year, a cure is closer than ever.