Dan Steinberg (DS) and Peg Steinberg (PS)

PS: When I was 36 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Ten and a half years later it had reappeared in my skin but I managed to come through it.

DS: And since then you’ve had one more bout with cancer.

PS: Yes I have. Two years ago I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer but I now feel pretty good and so far, knock wood, the cancer is not there. My family has been like a rock to me. From when you were even little, when you both came to the hospital, when I first had my mastectomies and you crawled into the bed with me and we watched movies on the television. But the most amazing time was after, my surgery for my ovarian cancer, you and Molly both said, ‘We were young before and you wanted to protect us, but now we’re here for you, we’re adults, and we want to know what your feeling so we can help you get through it.’ And that was very powerful.

DS: The way that you were able to carry, the way you were able to carry, yourself through out the entire thing. You’re still my mother, Molly’s mother, and that hasn’t changed. I guess what’s been hard for me, is just facing up to the fact that, at some point I know I’m going to have to say goodbye to you and I hope that’s not soon but I guess part of me thinks it could be any time.

PS: If there’s anything I could change, in terms of my illness, it would be that I could just give you positive things in life. So that you wouldn’t have had to deal with the fear of losing your mother.

DS: The idea that you haven’t been able to give us positive things is absurd. I love you and you’ve already been a role model of how I should attack life. How I should live life.

PS: You know what honey, I’m very happy that you feel that way and I can’t imagine having been through any of this without all of you.