Over the years my mother's steadfast faith in God has inspired me particularly when I had to perform extremely difficult surgical procedures or when I found myself faced with my own medical scare.

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.

My family frankly they weren't folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn't raise me in the church so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead.

No matter how old we become we can still call them 'Holy Mother' and 'Father' and put a child-like trust in them.

By presenting a faithful and honest record of my experience as a mother I hope to show both my readers and my children how truth can redeem even what you fear might be the gravest of sins.

I feel that between my experience and my mother's breast cancer is a little bit like someone who lives next door. I know what that person looks like and what their daily habits are.

My father respected and admired my mother and was a person who was always standing by my side encouraging me to do more and believed in my capacity. So in that sense my own experience was very good in becoming an empowered woman. From early on I carried that strong message: 'You can do it.' So I never had any doubt that women can do a lot.

My worst hair experience was when I was trying to relax my hair and my grandmother did it. It went all straight and I looked like a black Bee Gee.

Being a biological mother just isn't part of my experience this time around. However I am a mother who continues to give birth to ideas and ways of experiencing life that challenge the norm.

I believe there's no proverb but what is true they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience the universal mother of sciences.