This was written after I received a phone call on the night before my mother passed away. Afterward, at 2 am, I drove to Florida.

Mom went back to the hospital. She became unresponsive and I am told that it may be another stroke or a heart attack. She is still in the emergency room getting stabilized. Symptoms are a weak pulse, hallucinating, lucid, pupils not responding rite, and only recognizing one of the people she lives with.

It’s tough. At every turn, something is happening to my mother as the cancer spreads. I got word at lunch saying she was in hospice care now. I was able to keep it cool at work, and later my neighbor cheered me up. Tonight I got a call that she was on her way to the hospital and didn’t know what was going on. It just feels like every turn is one step closer to the end. Is it the end? Are people exaggerating? Am I taking it too emotionally? Should I be having more feelings? Why am I having a good day at work when I know she is going through this? Then I start to feel guilty thinking that it will not be so hard after she passes.

I’m at a point in my life where I am having both the best and worst experiences of my life, almost day to day. I go on a bit of a guilt trip for finally having a life that I can enjoy. I am no longer married in a relationship where I literally feared for my life. I’m not living in a house that looks and smells like a drug dealers den. I don’t have someone discouraging me from improving myself, my relationship, and my surroundings. My medical issues are being addressed. My teeth are being fixed. My loans are being paid off. I have friends. Many friends. And I do lots of things, and feel such well being, where everything is as it should be. If it makes any sense, I am becoming myself.

Every time something goes well in my life, something with my mom is sure to follow. I never really knew what cancer was about other than a long, painful, frustrating, and expensive death. I donate to charity here and there. I buy products to support cancer research sometimes. I didn’t know of all the complications that come along with cancer. I thought you just had it in one area, and eventually pass away. 

At every turn, it seems like the end is fast approaching. Once something new happens, you are waiting by the phone, hoping for any news. Constantly checking email, text messages, or even social media sites for an update from friends or family that may have a little piece of information that you are desperately waiting for. You even go so far as to start calling people that your siblings already talked to an hour ago, just in the hope that there is something new that no one has relayed yet. With every phone call of news, I am almost in a rush to end it quick so I can break down without other people hearing me. You want to know, but your emotions consume you at every new little detail.

Their is the emotional heart ache when someone with a very strong minded personality, just withers away to almost nothing, telling you random facts just to prove that they still remember things. The calls from friends who start breaking down and cascading into your own emotions. Family members with strong walls, starting to break apart.

When I first told my father about it, he said that he wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. This cancer gets into every nook and cranny in your life. Your families life. Your friends lives. Your friends of friends. Even people you don’t like. It takes you apart little by little and scars everyone else around you. All we can do is eradicate it if caught early, or wait for the worst and do our best to comfort you, ourselves, and friends. Our best to grieve again and again, while you are still alive.

I’m not there. I’m 866 miles away. It’s another world that I am not a part of. I can’t imagine what her friends are going through that know her and see her every day. 

I can’t recall her telling me that she loved me, but it may be something that I was too young to remember. I didn’t have a good relationship with my mom. She is a stubborn and tough person to know. There are tons of things that drove us further apart over the years. I thought I didn’t have any attachment to her at all until one day she sent me some documents and asked me to sign and notarize them regarding her wishes for a cremation. From there, most of us kids started talking to each other and her as well. 

Mom asked if there was anything I wanted. I told her that I wanted to know about her. I really didn’t know much at all about her growing up and how she viewed the world. She wrote a very big journal encompassing her life. Lots of things started making sense. Grandma’s behavior, moms opinions and reactions, and how each of us kids were affected by various actions and opinions formed in previous generations.

I still feel like I don’t have a good relationship with her, but my heart aches trying to cope, and I make sure to always tell her I love her when we talk. She hasn’t said it back to me since the stroke, but I know she would if her memory was still there. There has got to be a part of her somewhere inside that still says “I love you too”.