As Cancer Takes Another Victim

It feels like walking through a long tunnel with no lights, tripping over every rock, surfaced roots, and patch of uneven ground you could possibly run into. You know where you are at, but you're not fully aware of where you're going, and you have absolutely no idea when you are going to get there. Cancer is the road often traveled but not often understood, especially for those who have never experienced it.

As a child I spent my time believing that it would be my mother that would be at my college graduation, the one who cried when I tried on the wedding dress that was meant to be “the one”, the woman who would help me get ready for my wedding, and prepare me to have my first child, making sure I took all of the right vitamins and bought the right car seat. I thought it would be my mother who was there to watch me grow up and achieve my dreams. That's what she told me, when we would sit in the car on the way home from school, or on our deck on the mornings when I didn't have school. She made it sound guaranteed, as if it was written in the stars and nothing could stop that. However what she didn't know was that she wouldn't even make it to my 20th birthday, but then again neither did I.

I have watched my mom fade, between two years of intense chemotherapy and radiation treatments, to surgery and heavy medications, I have watched as the light and faith has slowly slipped from the sparkle in her eyes, leaving nothing more than a glossy eyed shadow of the woman I once knew behind. I felt like I lost her a month before we even realized where we were at, as the cancer took over her brain, leaving her in a state of confusion and delirium. It was like dementia was the only gift that could be given, in hopes that maybe even she would forget that she is only steps away from reaching death's door.

The thing about cancer is that you wander through it blindly, following the doctor's orders like the voice that may be directing you to freedom. It's an illness with no mercy, it takes its victim as the ransom and the bystanders as collateral. My mom was diagnosed when I was a few months short of 17. I watched the pain in my mothers eyes as she faced her children, and had to tell them that they are facing a battle where their mother may be the casualty. I watched my father cry as he realized he may lose the woman he has spent more than half of his life with.

As time went on we became desensitized. My mother being unable to get out of bed and feeling defeated, the clumps of hair around the house, the cries of pain, and tears of fear, they all became our normal. Our world was filled with hard conversations and even harder realizations. However none of this compares to the quick decline that came following her terminal diagnosis. We have watched her go days without being able to eat or drink without throwing it up, becoming immobile as the cancer has taken over her body leaving her in crippling pain. That has been enough to break us, even though this is merely the beginning of the end.

I haven made hundreds of painful phone calls having to inform everyone that the woman who has loved and supported them is in her last few weeks to months, listening to the hurt in their voice followed by the fear on their face when they see her regardless of my warnings. It's as if every world I speak is wrapped in caution tape. But then again how do you prepare any of us to watch someone we love go? How do you make any of this easier? How do you ease the weight of death for any one person, let alone every single person that person has ever loved, or been loved by?

Everyone always asks “Are you okay?”, as if my telling them losing your mother will never leave you feeling okay, and as if me telling them that will make it better.

You become isolated by your grief. When cancer becomes part of the equation every other number and symbol loses its meaning. You are surrounded by people yet, no amount of love and external support will ever fill the holes it leaves in you.

I wish I could tell you a story of how through all of this I have been able to keep my head up and push through; be the strong daughter, sister, niece and granddaughter that would make me worthy of a story on the local news as they recount my story and how I made good of an unimaginable situation. But the truth is I am just a warrior fighting for my survival, and doing my best to hide the damage.

And maybe someday I will feel like that person who made this tragedy into a story of growth and life changing awakening; however for now, I am just a child grieving the loss of her mother that is to come when the sun sets, and hoping I can get out of bed when the sun reemerges.

As the light begins to shine at the end of this tunnel we have been wandering for almost three years, just know, I will walk with you, your peace is coming, I love you, and no matter how long I go on without you, no mother will ever fill the hole that losing you will leave in me….

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