The Cottage

“Hello? Hello, ma’am?”

I look up, confused.

“I’m… I’m sorry, what did you say?” I ask.

“I am so sorry to have to be the one to tell you,” the doctor says, “but you have pancreatic cancer. It’s stage four, and we cannot operate.”

There is a sadness in his voice that I can tell he’s trying to cover, but he’s doing a terrible job of it. At least I know he cares.

“Okay.”

It’s all I can come up with. How are you supposed to react when you find out you’re dying. Not just dying, but dying fast without a cure.

“There are a few options you can choo…”

“No. No chemo. No medicine. I don’t want my last months here to be filled with vomit and needles and drugs. I don’t want that.”

“I understand.”

…..

“But you’re only 29. How the hell can you be this sick so young?”

“Yeah mom, I know.”

I don’t want to look up. I can’t bare to see the pain on my mother’s face. Her only child will be dead by her next birthday. How can any mother overcome that. She’s going to have to watch me suffer until I’m dead. What a shitty thing for me to leave behind as a last memory.

I look up and see tears welling in her eyes. She’s trying to hard to be strong. She even understood that I don’t want chemo. She understood that I want my last bit of time to be happy and fulfilled.

“Alright,” she says, wiping her eyes quickly before she thinks I notice. “Alright. So no chemo. What can I do to make these next couple months the best for you?”

“Mom, can we go to the cottage?” I ask. “That’s where I want to be.”

……

It’s been 3 months. I can tell my body is fighting me and it’s slowly shutting down. The fatigue is brutal, but luckily the pain has been tolerable most days. I know that this won’t last, but I’m hoping for a few more good months. I stare out of the screened-in porch of my parents’ cottage. The view is breathtaking. It’s nestled on a cozy little street that has barely any traffic. We’re lucky it has managed to avoid the abundance of tourism and giant million-dollar mansions popping up everywhere in town. The cottage is surrounded by beautiful maple trees. The leaves are turning brilliant shades of red and orange. The wind is calm, but every now and then, a gust rustles the leaves in a way that makes them look like they’re on fire. The little white paneled cottage is about 50 feet away from Lake Michigan and the sun sets in the most perfect spot so that you can sit on the porch and see it go down, inch by inch, until it dips down below the water. It’s all so beautiful, however, these are not my favorite things about the cottage. The gardens are. Lush, gorgeous gardens are spread throughout the yard. Both the back and front yard are filled with various flowers. Sunflowers, tulips, daisies, and lilies beautify the space around the front, but the back is my favorite. Right before the water begins, there lies a flower bed full of golden and orange marigolds.

When I was little, we would come to the cottage every year, and every year, my mom and I would go out and buy a marigold plant. We would take our time picking the perfect one. Then we would take it home, and she and I would plant it. We’ve planted one every year since I was 3. The flowers would bloom beautifully all summer, and then when the first frost would come, they would wilt and die. It made me sad to see them begin to wilt, but my mom would always tell me that these little flowers were special. She would tell me that although the marigolds do die after the weather turns colder, they leave behind some seeds, and with proper care from both Mother Nature and us, the seeds will grow brand new marigolds next year.

I walk out to the marigolds and sit down next to them. I take in their beauty for one last season. I see dew drops glistening on their pedals. It’s almost as if they’re showing their mourning for me. It’s as if they know it’s my last summer with them.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. My mom sits down with me and we watch the flowers sway in the wind. The weather is perfect. It’s not too hot, not too cold. It’s not too humid. There’s not a single cloud in the sky. I never want this day to end, but I know it will. I cuddle up to my mom and she strokes my hair. I close my eyes and breathe in the fresh air.

When I open my eyes again, look at my mom and I say “can you do something for me?”

“Anything,” she says.

“Can you keep planting one marigold every year, even when I’m not here?”

“Absolutely, my love,” she answers. “I had already planned on doing that in your memory. You know, even though you won’t be here in person, you will always be here in spirit. Your love has saturated the land around this cottage since you were a little girl. Every year that I plant a new marigold, your spirit will shine through. I will smile every time I look at them.”

“Thank you, mom. I love you so much.”

Mom wraps her arms around me and holds me tight. “I love you too, and I always will.”