“She discovered with great delight that one does not love one’s children just because they are one’s children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
To all the moms out there, this is your day. I hope you get to enjoy it! You do some really hard work and many of you get little or no appreciation for your efforts so GOOD JOB!
Happy Mother’s Day to you.
Mom has lung cancer, stage four.
We found this out last month.
It’s getting easier to say, “My mom has cancer,” but, at the same time, the awareness of what’s happening, what’s going to happen, is only getting bigger and deeper and heavier.
You know, I understand that I, that we, are not the only ones in the world going through this right now. I know there are daughters and sons who have just lost their mother and sons and daughters who have just been told they’re going to lose their mother. There are children all along this road, some right next to us at the exact same point. Yet, at the same time, I feel that we, Chris, Noelle, Bedot, and I, are in an isolated bubble. This is such a personal endeavor, it is just us and our mother and we are the ones who have to deal with these feelings, we are the ones who have to understand that we may soon be motherless. Just because it happens to everyone doesn’t make it easier to understand or navigate. I wish it did.
I don’t know that I’ll get a chance to tell my mom Happy Mother’s Day again. I don’t know if she knows that despite all the anger and fighting and tears between us, that I love her and I always have, even when I didn’t. Yeah, we didn’t like each other for a long time, but I did know that she loved me the whole time. I hope she knows that.
We’re going to spend the afternoon with Mom, getting her garden ready (unless the snow comes early. It’s just rain for now, so fingers crossed) so that she’ll have a summer of plants. It’s a good thing she taught us to garden, isn’t it?
Mom is the scrawny-legged kid on the left, next to her brother and in front of their father.
Senior picture.
Mother’s Day trip to the Botanic Gardens, 2012
006.7 EKGO 
I’m thinking of you and your family..I wish I could do something but I’m here for you.
Thanks, Kathy. It actually means a lot to know that we’ve got support because, I can tell you now, we’re going to need it sooner than we’d like. So thank you.
Oh Erica, I’m so sorry. But it sounds like you’re making the most of the time you have left, and I’m happy for you that you got the chance to reconcile with your mum.
We lost Dad to lung cancer in March – you’re right, it doesn’t make it any easier knowing others are going through the exact same thing. And knowing it was coming didn’t make it any easier either. You just have to remember the love; that, and time, will make the loss easier to bear. In the meantime, enjoy every minute because they are all precious.
xxx
Thank you…and I am so sorry you just had to go through this.
Lung cancer is an asshole. 😦