My mother Beverly was a dancer, singer, homemaker, devout Christian and amazing mother. She gave up a career in dance and married, and then devoted her life to raising me and my sister, as well as two stepchildren. She was kind to everyone, and totally down to earth despite head turning physical beauty. At 63, she looked 53 and had never had an unhealthy day, so we were shocked when a pain in her lower right abdomen and some nausea turned out to be stage 3C epithelial ovarian cancer.

After a year of chemotherapy and utter hell on earth, she succumbed, and went home to Jesus in September of 2006. What ovarian cancer did to her body during that year was something I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t seen it firsthand. Cancer stole her beauty and her smile, her ability to not only dance and sing, but walk and talk. And cancer robbed my two year old daughter of her “Nanny,” something I am only now able to deal with thanks to a grief counselor.

I exhort everyone, passionately, to push for better screenings for ovarian cancer. What we have now is not sufficient, and by the time these beautiful ladies are diagnosed, their diagnosis is, in the words of the popular television show House, “pine box.”

Please keep the conversation going about ovarian cancer, this thief who took my Mom away from me.

Story submitted by Nicole Motsch-DeMille