My mother was diagnosed with cancer over a year ago. She has
always been a small powerhouse of a woman. She is strong and feisty, and she
doesn’t let anyone stand in her way or tell her what she can’t do. She wants to
carry her bags by herself, drink with the guys, and be the cool mom who can
roll with the punches of any risque conversation. My memories of her during my childhood were
that of a whirlwind. She was always late. Always rushing to or from the car,
always a bit overwhelmed by all of the things she had committed to do, because
she didn’t want to disappoint anyone (including herself) by being less than
invincible.
My mother is not invincible. She is tired and she sometimes
wheezes as she tries to breathe normally after too much exertion. Exertion used to be a hard workout in the
home gym or a day or moving heavy furniture, but now it is sometimes walking
the length of the parking lot. She has
good weeks and bad weeks, depending on the duration since her last chemo treatment.
The thing is, we really all expected she’d be past this by
now. I mean, she is one of the fiercest,
healthiest people I know. When I was
growing up, everyone in the house would infect each other will illness and she
would keep on, making us all soup and tea.
If anyone was going to breeze through this diagnosis, it was her.
So, we all bucked up for a long and difficult year as she
went through chemo, then surgery, then radiation. And a year later, we were at the starting
point again. Would it “take” the next
time around?
Honestly, I had this small thought that maybe the process
would even be a blessing for her. Maybe
after a challenging year of treatment, she would slow down a bit… change her
priorities. Maybe she would get less
frazzled by a deadline or dinner guests.
Maybe she would be more willing to say no, or have less to prove. In my line of work, I have seen many people
with chronic disease who have gone through such transformations- some even
coming to a point where they are thankful for their diagnosis. Those are rare,
but they are the ones who thrive. They
are the ones who see what they have gained from the journey and the point that
they never could have reached any other way.
During the first year of her treatment, I often felt
helpless. I live further away than most
of the family. I can’t stop by to empty
the dishwasher or bring her a funny movie.
Our phone calls were strained by my wanting to address the illness, but
ignore it at the same time. I wanted to
pretend she didn’t feel sick, make her smile or forget. But I also wanted her to know that I was
thinking about it- that I cared every moment of every day about how she was
doing and feeling. It turns out that I was also always calling her during her
weakest and most fatigued time of day.
So, when we started in to a second year of treatment, I sat
down for a heart-to-heart. And since
then, our phone calls are still strained.
I still call at the wrong time of day. I still don’t know what to ask or
what to tell. And I still can’t stop by
for tea.
I am not sure what happens when we die, but I have
experienced enough that I believe our energy can continue to be a presence in
the lives of those we love. Maybe it is
our choice to hang around on this plane without a body. Maybe we are on another
plane with a one-way glass allowing us to see in without being seen. And I believe that if that is a choice, my
mom will choose it. She will be right
there with me, telling me which paint colors to choose, and what she thinks of
my daughter’s outfit. But I don’t want
to wait until she is gone to speak to the air and hope she hears me.
Maybe she will be in her body for another 30 years. Maybe she will see both of my children grow
up. Perhaps she will attend their
college graduations and weddings and the birth of their first children. But perhaps the fight between the cancer and
the treatment will be over far too soon.
And I don’t want to feel like there were things I should have said when
I could still hold her hand, still see her face.
I don’t think I have the guts to sit down with her and tell
her everything I want to say. I don’t
think I could formulate it well, and I think it would be too awkward, too
fatalistic, and too brief. I have seen
many books and blogs written from parents with cancer to their young kids. They seem to be a kind of proxy parenting
from the page- all of the advice they will need to hear in their heads for the
rest of their growing years. But I haven’t
seen the other side of the conversation.
There are things that we kids want to say to our parents also. I haven’t
lived long enough to know everything I will want to say to my mother for
decades to come. But I do know the many
things I want to say now, before I am speaking to the air and hoping she hears
me.
