so, june is a hard month for me. my mother's birthday was the 7th and the day she died was the 19th. i often find myself in a funk that i just can't seem to shake, no matter the dosage of meds. this year is has been especially hard for me for the mere fact that june 19th was a friday.
for most of my life, my mother and i fought. i was my father's daughter. the youngest, and his only girl. i am sure that threatened my mother in some way as my father and i were pretty much inseparable. after my father passed, i was pressured by my mother to get things done. the "normal" things in life. get married, produce offspring, you know. i was perfectly happy being single and living life. then i met someone i thought maybe i could settle down with. my mother hounded me about it. when is the wedding? why haven't you had a baby? when are you going to buy a house? i managed to tune her out most of the time. then came the day my husband told me he wasn't happy. he wanted a divorce. at the time i was crushed. it wasn't what i wanted. i lobbied for counseling. he declined. i didn't know he already had another woman... or girl really, as my replacement was only 19. and apparently as dumb as a box of rocks, but i digress. after that night of torture, i cried. i begged and pleaded. but his mind was made up. so, as i moved into the acceptance phase of the program, i fought an internal battle. i hadn't told my mother. a week passed, then a month. my sister knew. my friends knew. but i still hadn't told her. for fear that my delicate emotions wouldn't be able to handle her response. i was sure she would rant and rave that i had to try harder. call me a worthless failure. but as i began to wake from the haze, i knew i would have to tell her. so i did. expecting the worst. what i got was something so opposite of what i thought would happen that for a minute i wasn't even sure i was talking to my mother.
she was supportive. she cried with me. told me everything was going to be ok. that i didn't need a man to take care of me. that i was everything she raised me to be. a strong, independent woman. she reminded me that if she could raise 4 kids on her own for 10 years, that i would be fine. we talked every day. sometimes rehashing some old hurts, sometimes laughing over shared memories. she became my long distance rock.
and then, she got sick. with her being 800 miles away in oregon, all i could do was pester my sister and brother to get her to a specialist. i knew it was cancer. it had to be. she had been a smoker since the age of 15. after all those years of fighting with her, now i was fighting for her. i called her doctors, insisted on tests. finally, one of the doctors agreed to do an MRI. the only problem was that mom couldn't lie down without coughing long enough for them to do the test. with my brother and sister by her side, they dosed my mom with morphine to get her calm enough to lay flat on the machine table.
hours later the phone rang in my office. it was friday morning. june 19th, 1997. my brother was the caller. "mom has pancreatic cancer" he said. i asked if she knew. he told me that they wanted to wait until i got there to tell her. could i come right away? i told him i would be there that night. i called the temp service and ordered up a temp to cover the rest of the day and the next week. told my boss what was going on and high-tailed it out for home to pack a bag. i left my house at 3:00pm that day. when i arrived in klamath falls at 9:30 that night i went straight to the hospital. i didn't want my mom to know i was there because then she would know for sure that something was wrong, but i wanted to peek in on her. just to see her for myself. when i finally found her room i stuck my head in the door and saw the bed was empty. the charge nurse asked if i was looking for someone. i told her that i just wanted to look in on my mom and she said "oh, she passed away earlier this evening." what? why hadn't my brother or sister called me? when i asked them, they both answered that they hadn't wanted to upset me while i was driving. i was incredulous. i had driven like a bat out of hell to get there as fast as i could. if they had called me i would have known not to take the chances i had to get there. but there was nothing left to do. she had already been taken to the cemetery for the cremation. we managed to stop them before that happened the next day so that i could see her for myself and say good bye.
it was one of the hardest things i have ever had to do. and every time june 19th falls on a friday, it's like living it all over again.
RSS Feed (xml)
Posts
