Trying to Make Peace with My “Berthas”

I refer to my breasts as “Berthas.” The last time I was intimately acquainted with double Ds was my grandmother Bertha’s set. Now she has taken up residence on my chest.

I am ambivalent about my mammary glands, and I wonder why. They served me well, nursing two babies, swelling and shrinking according to my weight and hormone fluctuations. Always there, always reliably coy and inviting in revealing clothing and cooperative in utility.

They began when I was 11 as small, round buds behind my girlish nipples, which were uncomfortable if I accidentally bumped into a door jam or a wall. Two of my girlfriends shared bedrooms with older sisters. Both were obsessed with bosom development. They teased and talked about “training bras” versus “cupfuls.” Left to my own thoughts, I was less excited for the arrival of my own “girls.”

The first time I called upon them to do their job nourishing my infant daughter, they relented….at first. But after a few weeks, the dry winter weather was too taxing on the often-wet nipples, so they cracked. Wincing with pain, self-examination revealed hairline cracks at the base of each nipple. When I referenced my 1979 copy of “The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding,” I learned these cracks caused the dissonance between my hungry baby’s mouth and my Berthas.

The last time I was intimately acquainted with double Ds was my grandmother Bertha’s set. Now she has taken up residence on my chest. I am ambivalent about my mammary glands, and I wonder why.

Rubber nipple covers were minimally helpful and difficult for a baby to latch onto. They reminded me of sex with a sadly thick condom. Eventually cocoa butter and bare-breasted airing in the winter sun cured me.

When my son arrived, humid summer weather protected my nipples, and my Berthas now understood nursing swellings and shrinkages.

They have been medically referred to as “dense” when x-rayed and palpated for cancer. Now, in my 70s, they are less dense, and regular mammograms are less urgent. Why, I wonder? Still, the thought of being diagnosed with breast cancer is as frightening to me as it was 10 or 20 years ago.

But medical research indicates these fears are statistically unlikely.

In gym workout room mirrors my bosom is often the largest in a group of 40 women. When I move in cardio classes and press weights overhead, my Berthas are proudly independent.

Stepping on a scale, I wonder how much of the number is attributable to the Berthas. I cannot zip up some dresses because of their generous protrusions. I have not had back pain associated with large breasts, yet I entertain thoughts about breast reduction. Clothing hangs better on a less endowed body.

But surgery?

Breast reduction is major surgery and involves risks. And then there is the cost.

But there is more to my hesitation.

Friends and relatives in my life have undergone mastectomies and suffered pain and the uncertainty of surgery. Some chose to rebuild their breasts, and one chose not to rebuild. These personal decisions and medical fears weigh pure vanity against fear and suffering; a desire for one’s old self versus undergoing additional surgery.

So, at this juncture I must decide to accept what my body has handed me and how I want to live with it. “Nature knows best” is my general guideline, and I will accept her decision.

My grandmother, Bertha Boas, lived most of her life with the initials BB, just like Brigitte Bardot. She proudly covered her ladies with napkins, even in tony restaurants, where airy popovers cooled in baskets on the table, to prevent her clothes from staining or soiling.

Her 1960s darkly patterned elegant dresses always managed to zip up. Perhaps my grandfather was a zipper guru? She did not leave the house without her nose powdered, her lips rouged and heavy gold bracelets on her arm. When I was a child she let me root around in her purse to discover a stash of hard Dutch coffee candies called Hopjes so I could crunch on their porcelain surface and experience my first taste of sweetened coffee.

At this juncture I must decide to accept what my body has handed me and how I want to live with it. “Nature knows best” is my general guideline, and I will accept her decision.

Bertha had survived the Holocaust with her husband and son, my father. She crossed European borders on foot and via mountainous Pyrenees’ paths wearing street shoes and carrying a single suitcase. She spoke three languages fluently and served as a long-distance telephone operator in her youth. For six long months, Ellis Island was her home when the United States would not let her and family enter this country.

She left this earth after years of dementia, wearing out her running shoes walking the long aimless halls in her nursing home. She sang ancient Dutch nursery rhymes, spoke in gibberish, and experienced all the indignities of ending life in an institution you cannot leave voluntarily.

If I could ask her for an opinion on my thoughts, I do not doubt what she might say.

“Ok,” I say to my own Berthas, “You stay. I will not erase you nor deplete you. You are my legacy and my longtime companions and helpers.”

I will support you as we age together and learn to accept what we might experience together.

And Bertha Boas: Thanks for the inheritance.

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