On my Mom....

Growing up, I always joked with everyone that I was Mom's favorite. Maybe it was because I was her baby or maybe it was because I had been so sick as an infant. But for whatever the reason was, I was sheltered and protected. I remember once in college, calling to rant about some injustice and her offering to intercede on my behalf. She has even offered to do this as late as my current job. I don't think it was that she didn't think I was incapable of handling it on my own, but rather I was her baby no matter how old I was or how my own family was growing. I have long ago stopped accepting her even though she never stopped offering; but yet it was comforting on some level knowing she was always there for me.

I remember the day she told me she had cancer. Garrett was one, and I remember driving away in tears, terrified that without her I would not be able to be the kind of mom I had. There was so much I didn't know then, I had so many questions and she became a one of kind teacher. And through the process of one mother showing her daughter to be a mother; I found something more. I found quite quickly and easily that she had become my best friend. And so she was there, answering all my questions. For two years, even through all the chemo & the pain, she was there and she very much became the center of his universe.

At Christmas time when she told us that despite all the different chemos the cancer still grew; I found myself incredulous and panicking a little. Incredulous that this could be happening when there was another baby on the way. How could she be taken without being able to love him as much as she did his older brother? Panicking because how would I ever deal with my own grief as well as Garrett and the new baby? Yet here we are, God has not failed us yet...

She was there with me in the room when both of the boys were born. When Garrett was born she was so strong! I remember her walking into my room, and thinking how great she looked for the middle of the night, she even had time to put eyeshadow on. She drove herslef down to the hospital in the middle of the night, and she never left my side for the entire 3 hours I labored. Wyatt's birth was completely different, this time we had to pick her up; yes in the middle of the night; (she wasn't driving anymore). She sat in a chair on one of the walls.. She was not there to hold my hand through every contraction, she slept through most of them. Only when I would cry out "mommy!" would she rouse herself to come hold my hand. Even as I yelled out for her to take away my pain, I was realizing how crazy that must have sounded to her. But that's what she had always been able to do in the past. Thoughts flooded my mind, thinking things like how could I ever survive labor without her there to soothe me the way only one's own mother can. It was tough on both of us, I had to be slightly more independant, and she was struggling with her own battles but I don't think either of us would have done it differently.

I struggle every day with unfairness of it all. I have two sons who she loved more than anything. One will only remember how sick she was and one will have no memory of her at all. I sometimes feel guilty about that, that somehow I have acted selfishly, but I know it's not true. A few days ago Garrett hurt his foot and the only thing I could think of was how to stop his pain.
It made my heart ache, thinking of how she must feel seeing in this kind of pain, but unable for one of the first times, to help us through it. I sat there in her room, feeling so alone, wanting to tell someone my feelings and I realized that it was Mom I wanted. Today as I kissed her, for I believe the last time, I laughed a little to myself that she still had a bit of eyeshadow on her eyes. The morning 3 weeks ago when she had gone into the hospital, she must have put on her eyeshadow one last time, "I don't go anywhere without it" she would say. No, Mom you don't and it's still there. Everything's as it should be.