In one year Julia Sweeney got a divorce (amicable), bought a small bungalow in Hollywood, and looked forward to a life that said, "Here dwells a happily single young woman!" But then the axe fell. Her younger brother, Mike, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and moved in with her. Her parents came to be with Mike and moved in with her, too. Julia was now on seriously intimate terms with the people she had spent half a lifetime growing up away from.
Just weeks before Mike died, Julia was diagnosed with a rare form of cervical cancer (what Mike called her "sympathy cancer"), and within days of burying her brother she underwent a radical hysterectomy, beginning her own journey through "the International House of Cancer".
Drawing from these Job-like travails, Julia wrote this remarkably funny and touching monologue about a family that managed to persevere with humor, grace, and love.
