Behind Mom's dark glasses: A civil rights leader's biggest fight - CNN.com: Days ago, I sat at my mother's bedside and helped her hold a copy of our 2003 memoir, 'Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights.'The cover pictures her leading a protest march when she was 20 years old.
'That's you,' I said, pointing out her face, determined and stoic behind dark sunglasses.
'I remember this,' Mom said, and smiled.
These days, I do not take my mother's memory for granted.
My mother, Patricia Stephens Due, now 71, has thyroid cancer. Although thyroid cancer is considered highly treatable, by the time Mom's disease was diagnosed in the fall of 2009, the cancer had spread throughout her body, including her spine, which was fractured by the tumors. She was in bed for months.
