Mom's Birthday

Today is my mom's birthday.

She would have been 67 today.  I would have called her up this morning, maybe woken her up, to sing Hippo Birdies into the phone.  She would have laughed and said how old she feels, and then maybe she would have come up for coffee.

She's been dead for almost two years.  This month is the month it all started, two years ago, the month when we found the cancer.  It had been growing inside her for a long time, but she thought it was her colon, a dietary issue, something she could fix by eating right.  She told me she went to a naturopath and they thought she had food allergies. 

Food allergies.  Good god.

What she had was cancer on her cervix, which by the time we got it checked out, was the size of a cantalope and had invaded many other organs.  She told me she'd been back to the doctor.  She lied.  She lied to me, because she didn't want me to worry, because she had only part-time work, little money, no medical insurance.  She made too much to qualify for the Access program which passes for medical relief here.  And she thought she couldn't get Medicare until she turned 65.  So she waited, tried to ignore the pain, lied to all of us about how she felt and what she was doing about it.  I had offered more than once to pay for a doctor, but she knew I couldn't afford it either.  She didn't want to be a burden to anybody.

This month, 2 years ago, I made some calls and found out she could get on Medicare right away, didn't have to wait for her birthday, and so we started the ball rolling ... on the 10th of October.  Began a series of doctor's appointments and phone calls and forms to fill out, and it was then I realized how bad it was for her.  It had become bad ... seemingly overnight.  Was it that the cancer suddenly erupted and blossomed inside her, or was it that she'd been holding on with gritted teeth for god knows how long and now that relief was in sight, she let go? 

She had always had such steely self-control.  And she had a very high tolerance for pain.  So I know it must have been really bad.  She couldn't make the phone calls.  She couldn't fill out the forms.  She couldn't drive.  I took on the jobs, drove her to appointments, sat with her to hear the news, took notes, asked questions, did research on the net to see what was what and what could be done ... none of which helped in the end.  There were no options.  They shouldn't have bothered to remove her uterus, it didn't help.  We put her body through that horrendous surgery... for nothing.

Two months to the day.  October 10th we started this ball rolling.  October 21st we celebrated her birthday at the doctor's office, then went to a restaurant to try to recapture moments we loved together, over coffee, which she couldn't drink, and brownies, which she couldn't eat.  She became fragile.  November 10th she went in for surgery.

I stayed with her in the hospital while she "recovered", a full week spent on a cot, helping her to the bathroom, worrying that she wasn't getting better.  I listened while the doctors explained about Stage 4 cancer, as if that term was supposed to mean something to us.  We didn't understand, and I'm sure they thought we were dummies.  They finally said she could go home, but she didn't seem better to me.

All the empty reassurances we tried to believe.

She came home with me, and I thought ... we all thought ... she would recover, and then she could start chemo therapy.  That's what the doctors said to expect, that she would recover, that she could beat it.  We were wrong.

December 10th she died.

These three months will never be the same for me.

Comments

[Nancy]

{{{Christine}}} I'm so sorry about your Mom. Thank you for sharing these memories--both happy and sad--with us. And may the happy ones always overcome the sad. I'll be thinking of you.

[David]

Oh. Christine. I hear the pain, and it hurts to hear it. Part of me wants to encourage you to channel memories of your mother into those creative gifts you have, "in remembrance" as it were. Part wants to just give you a brotherly hug.

Be well, Christine.