Picture of Katie Ludlow Rich
Katie Ludlow Rich
Katie Ludlow Rich is a writer and independent scholar focused on Mormon women's history. She is the co-writer of the book, “Fifty Years of Exponent II,” which includes an original history of the organization and a selected works from the quarterly publication and blog. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Mormon History, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Exponent II. She lives in Utah County with her husband, four kids, and two dogs. Email at KatieLudlowRich @gmail dot com

Talking to Heavenly Mother in the Pre-Op Room

Talking to Heavenly Mother in the Pre-Op Room
Photo by Bret Kavanaugh on Unsplash

I’m thinking about my mom today. Tomorrow would have been her 60th birthday. Instead, she died ten years ago from primary peritoneal cancer, the twin sister of ovarian cancer.

This morning I was interviewed by a reporter from a national outlet about my essays on Heavenly Mother. In preparation for this interview, I re-read my essay from here, “Elder Renlund: Heavenly Mother is Not a Weapon,” and my essay from Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, “Mothers and Authority.”

When the Dialogue special issue on Heavenly Mother came out, I was invited to be on a podcast discussion with several of the contributors. I was grateful for the opportunity and enjoyed the experience, but found myself drained at the end. Some of that was my introversion and post-performance anxiety, but some of it was that my Dialogue essay discusses how my Mormon feminist awakening is intertwined with my mom’s cancer and death. Though I submitted the essay about a year before its publication, it ended up that the podcast was recorded the week of the 10-year anniversary of my mom’s death and a week before Mother’s Day. My mom was buried the day before Mother’s Day in 2012, which happened to also be my first Mother’s Day as a mother myself. My grief was higher than usual that week and had followed an intense two months in the lead-up to and aftermath of Elder Renlund’s general conference talk.

The death of a loved one creates a personal liturgical calendar of grief—dates on the calendar that take on new meaning, that may bring a renewed grief, or just demand reflection. Some of these dates for me include the anniversary of my mom’s death, Mother’s Day, my birthday, and my mom’s birthday.

This year not only is a significant anniversary of loss—ten years—but is also the year that I had a hysterectomy/oophorectomy in an effort to prevent the cancer that killed my mom. Six years ago I underwent genetic testing and learned that I am BRCA1 positive, meaning I have a genetic mutation that gives me a high chance of breast and ovarian cancers. My doctors recommended that I have this surgery by about age 35, and wanting to wait until my kids were just a bit older and in school more hours of the day, I ended up scheduling it for the month I turned 35.

I am six weeks post-surgery today. On Monday I had my follow-up appointment with my surgeon. After an internal examination, she said that I am healing, but on the slower side, as is typical of her patients who are parents of young children. She said everything looks good with my internal stitches, and there is nothing medically that needs to be done, but that I need to be on restrictions for physical activity for an additional two weeks. I left the office discouraged. With the help of my husband and friends, I felt I had gone to great efforts to take it easy. I slept, napped, watched TV, and avoided laundry and cooking. The “work” I did mostly entailed reading and sitting at a computer, with frequent breaks. I wanted to get back to the gym and start walking my dogs again. I wanted, if I dare admit it, to be in charge of the laundry again. Alas, it will have to wait. Healing is not linear, and healing takes time.

It seems like a poetic bookend to this year to have my interview in the same week as my mom’s birthday. It was nice to reflect on my mom and on Heavenly Mother.

After my interview, I went to work going through issues of Exponent II for the book I am co-editing with Heather Sundahl to celebrate the upcoming 50-year anniversary of Exponent II. Our book will come out in the Summer of 2024 with Signature Books. I read through and took notes on five issues today, marking some essays that I want to pull for the selected works section of our book. The last issue I read today included three essays by women with cancer—one woman with leukemia, one with ovarian cancer, and one with retroperitoneal sarcoma. Peritoneal cancer is rare, so I was amazed to encounter this essay. It was a gift to read these women’s stories. Though I will say, that the reflections on Helen Andelin’s Fascinating Womanhood that followed the cancer essays were good comic relief for me as some friends and I performed a skit with dramatic readings of that book for the variety show at the Exponent retreat this year (long live the Lakeview Relief Society!). If that blend of serious and meaningful with lighthearted and comical isn’t a perfect encapsulation of my experience with Exponent, I don’t know what is.

As I’ve spent these months reading through the backlog of Exponent issues, I’ve realized it is very possible that I’ve never had an original thought in my entire life. I joined Exponent as a 30-something with a graduate degree in English who was also a stay-at-home mom of several children who wanted to write about the intersections of Mormonism and feminism in her life. How many other women have had a nearly identical experience with this organization? Many. How many others have written about Heavenly Mother? Many. I’ve decided I’m okay with not being original when I’m in such good company.

My Dialogue essay starts out with me crying out to Heavenly Mother from the shower floor in the midst of caring for a colicky newborn. The reporter today asked if I still talk to or pray to Heavenly Mother. I thought back six weeks to my time laying in a hospital bed in the surgery pre-op space before heading to the operating room. Yes, it was Heavenly Mother I reached out to then, and though I did not have a rosary with me, I said Hail Marys as well.

Tomorrow I will pick up some chocolate cheesecake—my mom would surely agree that there are few better ways to honor her memory. Then I will read more essays from Exponent II and take comfort that nearly every challenge I face has been faced by people before me. And I will rest because that is the work that my doctor and my efforts to heal demand.

Read more posts in this blog series:

Katie Ludlow Rich is a writer and independent scholar focused on Mormon women's history. She is the co-writer of the book, “Fifty Years of Exponent II,” which includes an original history of the organization and a selected works from the quarterly publication and blog. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Mormon History, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Exponent II. She lives in Utah County with her husband, four kids, and two dogs. Email at KatieLudlowRich @gmail dot com

9 Responses

  1. Oh, Katie. This piece is beautiful and heavy. You have experienced and faced so much that connects you to the women before and around you. I am crying because I love you, your words, and the meaning and connections you are finding. Also, long live the Lakeside Relief Society!

  2. I had surgery 5 years ago for retroperitoneal sarcoma. Mine was the size of an orange (a football, oh my!). I have never met/heard of anyone who had this same cancer. I’m coming up on my yearly CT scan. So far I am clear. This is an exclusive club. I hope Sister Pitcher is still doing well. I think I’m probably a bit older than she is; I was 44 In 1994.

  3. Oh friend. This has me tearing up. You weave together such disparate things and find commonality. I too take comfort in knowing how many other souls have suffered and survived, that a Feminine Divine watches over me, and people like you are brave enough to write about it all.

  4. Katie, I’ve been thinking about this post for the past few days since I first read it. It’s a rich tapestry. Thank you for writing it. And yes, rest and healing are work.

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