Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of my mom’s death. Two years is a weird number. My loss is no longer an infant, weak and helpless; but it’s certainly not full-grown. It’s small enough that I can still hold it in my arms. It still needs my nurturing and attention. It probably always will. It's not ready to be left entirely on its own.
I remember when we first heard the words “lung cancer” and the idea that my mother might have the disease. It seemed impossible. Like someone had said she might have elephantitis. What? Who gets lung cancer? Certainly not my healthy mother.
More than anything, it was terrifying. I couldn’t imagine life without my mom. I mean, I literally couldn’t imagine it. I’d gone 33 years with her by my side – it was like trying to imagine life without legs and no possibility of crutches. All I felt was sheer terror.
It’s hard for me to speak for her – you can’t ever truly know what someone else is feeling when they’ve been diagnosed with cancer – but I think she also felt sheer terror - a different kind of terror.
Our terror clamped on like a steel rod and pushed us forward. Early on, though, her rod became unbolted; first with the stroke and then with the myriad of other complications that ravaged her body.
At times, I felt like I had to hold us both up, but that was just an illusion. Even though she was weak, and even when she couldn't speak, she was still Mom until the very end. I still had her until she took her very last breath.
The terror I felt during the initial diagnosis was fear of how I could cope without her - but also fear of whether I would forget her. So much of a person is how we perceive them. If we stop perceiving them, is that when they cease to exist?
When she took her last breath and she no longer had life, it was as if someone had turned off the electricity. Once she was no longer the vessel for so much energy, life and light, she was merely a vehicle, a body, a box.
But even though my mother was physically gone,she most definitely has not ceased to exist. Although I can't see her, touch her, smell her or hold her, she's been there for me every step of the way.
When I decided to move back to Boston and had to sell her house, it sold in a week. When I found the neighborhood I wanted to live in, her oldest friend's daughter knew someone selling a condo. When I looked for a job during the beginning of an economic downturn, I got one within weeks and it opened a lot of interesting doors - doors she would have loved.
The night before she died, I met someone who's been a source of strength and support; a patient, loving man who makes me laugh and even reminds me of her sometimes in certain ways.
I can't see her, touch her, feel her or smell her - and as anyone who's read this blog knows, I basically channel my grief into advocacy. But sometimes, out of nowhere, it hits me and I miss her so much. Sometimes, there's no one else who'd have the right words to say- no one else who'll love me unconditionally, no one else who's just like her.
But she's still there, right by my side. My grief hasn't grown up so much that it no longer needs her and she hasn't left me yet.
I still see her in so many different and unexpected ways, and yesterday was no exception.
I recently befriended a young woman through an online lung cancer support group. Her mother is only 46 years old and has advanced lung cancer. Like my mom, she has blood clots and has had some strokes.
Her daughter wrote to me and said that their oncologist had given up on her mother and that they felt hopeless. I suggested that she see my mother's doctor for a second opinion because she's one of the leading researchers into cutting edge therapies involving genetic testing of tumor mutations.
There was no guarantee that she could do something, but it was worth a shot. Better than being told your 46 year-old mother is a lost cause.
Yesterday, I got this email from the young woman:
"Dear Julia,
We went to see Dr. Sequist yesterday and we loved her! They are seeing if there is enough tissue from my mom's September biopsy to do the genetic testing, if not they will be calling her in for another biopsy next week and then we'll take it from there. If she doesn't have one of the mutations Dr. Sequist recommends Alimta as the next chemo to try.
Thank you so much!"
Her mother's first appointment with my mother's doctor was two years to the day after my mother's death.
Call me crazy, but I don't think that's a co-incidence. I'm sure that my mother is somehow part of this new journey, just as I feel her as a part of my journey and the advocacy I do. She's welcoming this new patient that I directed to her old doctor, hoping for better results for this daughter's mother two years later.
I miss you, mom. You will never, ever be forgotten. I am so glad that you are still here, that I still feel you and see you in so many miracles.
Love,
Julia
