For about a year after the birth of each of my children I would have occasional panic attacks that left me bereft.  It always happened as I was trying to go to sleep.  I would suddenly be overwhelmed with the idea of dying and leaving my babies without a mother.  My heart would race.  My thoughts would spin out of control.  It was terrifying.

It’s not that I feel that I’m the best mother who ever lived.  I’m sure my sons would survive without me, but no one would love them–every cell of their being–with the blinding love that I have for them.  I grew them (well two out of three of them).    I know every inch of them.

When Elizabeth Edwards died yesterday, I could feel the panic creep around the edges of my heart.

photo credit: NY Daily News

My respect for Ms. Edwards was established long ago–long before I knew she had cancer.  Her brains, grace, love of life, love for her children, self-awareness and seemingly honest self-acceptance were all so admirable.  She’s the very kind of woman I would have loved to have worked for or had as a mentor.

Learning she had cancer was sad.  Realizing she might leave young children behind was much worse.

Hearing of her death yesterday was devastating.

You see Elizabeth Edwards is but one woman, but she represents so many more.  Too many more.

Elizabeth Edwards is the public reminder of the women–the mothers–in my life who are battling breast cancer right now or living with it as a looming shadow in their recent past.  It feels like every month I’m learning of another friend who has been diagnosed–another mother with cancer.

And much like those panic attacks of early motherhood, I’m sitting here today a mix of crazy emotions.  I’m sad for the death of this wonderful woman.  I’m sad for her children.  I am afraid for my friends.  I worry about my own health.  About my children.  I am angry.  I AM SO ANGRY for each child that will be left without a mother this year.

And yet I feel helpless.

We can give money.  We can raise awareness. We can participate in studies.

But I won’t be happy until we don’t ever have to mourn another mother with cancer again.

I walked into that place today.  The one that contains various implements of torture.

It wasn’t like yesterday when I brought the extra bag of clothes with me and then dragged it home without donning its contents.

Nope!  Today I put the outfit and worked up the courage to face the Chamber of Doom.

New to all this ess & emm stuff, I kept it pretty vanilla today.  I had the right costume, but I knew all the regulars knew this was my first time.  I’m sure they could tell by the way I looked around not wanting to make eye-contact–looking at the equipment like I wasn’t sure just what to do with it.  It felt like I had a giant text balloon over my head that said “first-timer.”

I didn’t let the uncomfortable feelings deter me.  I chose the closest contraption–the music was thumping.  I started working up a sweat and soon forgot about everyone else around me.  Oh. my. god!  It started to feel so good!  I didn’t want to stop, but I couldn’t stay there forever.  I had to get back to my family. *sigh*

Not a bad outing for the first day at the gym.

Oh and I’m so grateful the friction of my thighs didn’t start a fire, cause that would have been really embarrassing.

I’ve made a commitment to work out three times a week for the next twelve weeks as part of the Choose You campaign.  I’ll be blogging about my journey with a group of fabulous women over on the Choose You blog.  Make your own health commitment when you visit the site and then you too can pretend you’re all freaky like me.