The Mama Spot

Now Accepting Emails: Mom, the MMRF and My Inbox

Today marks my mother’s fifth deathiversary.  I know, not funny, but it’s true.  As I’ve written before, the period from right before Thanksgiving through Christmas tends to be one filled with emotional adventures for me.  One minute, things are fine, and another, she’s all over me, assaulting me with memories of the last two weeks of her life or amusing me with visions of the other thirty 34 years plus I shared with her.  I’ve reached the tipping point where the visions outweigh the assaults.  But, that’s not what I intended to write about.

Honestly, I didn’t intend to write at all, but my fingers somehow clicked out of Twitter and ended up here…typing.   Well, after they checked email and found an email thanking me for supporting the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation Race for Research.  I didn’t even open the email, only read the portion of the subject line that was visible before I felt anger welling up inside me.  See, since she died, I haven’t supported the MMRF or any other of the multiple myeloma-focused organizations or efforts that used to be welcome to visit my inbox.  And, I swear, I unsubscribed from them all shortly after she died in protest of their failure to keep her here longer…and then to bring her back after she’d gone.

I remember the last two weeks pretty vividly, a mixture of holiday cheer, watching her chest wondering if this breath would be the last, loving and even festive visits from friends and family, and pre-passing funeral preparations.  I remember being on the floor of my dining room on December 2 and hearing my youngest sister who lay next to our mother say, “I don’t think she’s breathing!”  And, that was it.  I was prepared.  A few tears and then all of my planning became action.  I knew who to call, what to do, what to say.  I had planned almost everything—which nurse to call to confirm the time of death, the number of the local funeral home that would remove and transfer her body from here to Cleveland.  I had developed my phone tree and drafted a beautiful email to share the difficult news with the people who loved her.

What I hadn’t prepared for was the site of her empty bed echoing throughout my home making her transition more real than even the site of her lifeless body wearing the disguise of peaceful sleep.  I wasn’t ready for the emptiness.  But, my handle-it instincts kicked in, and I quickly solved the problem with the only response I could—more emptiness.  I pleadingly ordered my uncles to dismantle the bed. Take.  It.  Down.  Remove every suggestion that she ever slept here.  Immediately.

And, then, I did the same with all things multiple myeloma, the disease that took her life.  Although I have participated in Relay for Life every year since then, I have always been resistant, adamantly opposed even, to having anything to do with anything to do with that disease specifically. But still, I want it gone.

We were blessed. When my mother was diagnosed at 45, the best prognosis for most people was 24 months…maybe.  And, although it was considered a terminal disease, my mother was able to borrow another decade plus a little and to spend several years of it with no signs of the disease.  That gift was the result of her young age and good health at diagnosis, divine grace coupled with clinical trials, new medications and even old, previously banned ones that have now made multiple myeloma a treatable, manageable disease.  So, I know the power of research.  I know that if my mother had relapsed even one year earlier, we wouldn’t have gotten the plus.  The first treatment she received after her relapse had been banned in this country and had just been approved for treatment of this disease. The second, which, as these things go may have also impaired her health further, was new and had just been made available due to the great success in trials.

So, both my grieving and my healing continue with this post, as I opt not to delete and re-unsubscribe from the MMRF mailing list and instead become a Facebook fan.  Eradicating all things multiple myeloma from my inbox did not have the desired effect of changing the facts of my mother’s illness and death.  I, however, am now in a place where I can change my story about those facts and create a space in both my email account, my heart and my budget to embrace the work that the foundation is doing to give other families some plus-time with their loved ones and to ultimately find a cure.

To learn more about the MMRF and the work they're doing and/or to donate and support this research, visit: www.themmrf.org.

Postscript: 

I actually wrote this post on Tuesday morning.  The first words were originally, “This Thursday marks…”  That night, my son’s father called to tell me that a dear friend, several years younger than me, is presenting with multiple myeloma.  That was affirmation that my healing was right on schedule.

Four Years and Counting

 

The holidays are usually an emotionally challenging period for me.  On November 17, 2004, my mother made a decision to leave the hospital where she had spent several days battling complications from a cancer called multiple myeloma and teaching her three daughters to cross-stitch.  She had opted for hospice care in my home...my dining room to be specific.  Her decision came after a compassionate attending gave her a two-week prognosis, the only one we'd ever received during her decade-plus-long war with this disease.  In the previous months we'd heard words like "soon", "prepare", "can't predict".  But, to a family and cancer survivor who had experienced miracles and second chances against a keen backdrop of borrowed time, "soon" really didn't mean anything.  "Two weeks," did.

My mother, a quiet warrior, didn't believe that she was really so close to death at the time.  I remember the doctor explaining that keeping her on IV fluids at home might extend her life a bit longer but could also exacerbate complications with her heart and ultimately have the opposite effect.  He inquired about her "time objectives", as it was clear she wasn't going for the "just go home and die" option.  This woman, who I believe only fought the relapse of her cancer because of my son and her undying desire to go on a Carnival cruise in a few months (she was saving nickels for the slot machines) actually told the doctor that she had plans in September...seriously, a cruise.

"Um, Mom, I think he's talking weeks maybe, not months."

Did. Not. Compute.

Well, not until a week later, a week before she passed.  She was sitting, propped up against her headboard in what has again become my dining room, paralyzed on her left side and unable to speak (the effects of the stroke she'd had the day before), when I asked, "You didn't believe him when he said two weeks, did you?"  She shook her head.  "You do now?"  She nodded...peacefully.

Here's the thing, the terrible morbid thing.  For years after she passed, my only memories of my Mom were mostly of those last two weeks.  Her face swollen from steroids and fluids being pumped into a body unable to process them; all the books I'd read, so I could explain to her, at her request, what to expect as her body slowly stopped functioning; guilt from believing I had over-medicated her with morphine and decongestant before I understood that her paralysis was from a stroke, a normal part of the dying process; hoping for just one more wet bed pad to prove her body was still working; shifting her in an effort to help the morphine numb the pain; horribly silent moments between breaths, wondering if each was the last.  All these memories and so many others that I won't bore you with here haunted me for a long, long time.  

But, here's the other thing, the other memory that won't leave me even in my weakest moments.  My mother, again, unable to speak, days away from dying, nothing to lose by being brutally honest...  "Ma, I bet you didn't think that in a million years, I would be the one to manage all this, did you?"  She shook her head.  "But, you see that I'll make sure they're OK, right?  She nodded.  

See, of the three of us, I am the least responsible, the most impulsive, the least respectful, the one most likely to take the path less travelled by most people for damn good reasons...the last one any of us expected to step fully into the role of big sister and eldest daughter.  Not even my mother would have predicted it on her death bed.

But I did it.

I became this unrecognizable person who was so familiar all at the same time.  And, even during that time, I found joy in that process of growing into womanhood.  Even then, I was thankful for the opportunity to serve my mother; to make up for any pain I had caused her; to do any and everything to be the daughter she'd imagined at my birth; to demonstrate my gratitude in ways that I couldn't have imagined.  I put my signature self-absorption, my fears, my self-doubt, even my pain aside, to open myself up to all that she wanted to teach me for those fourteen days...and beyond.  And, I found joy. 

It may sound crazy to some people.  Death is hard to face, especially when it's literally staring at you...and it's your Mom.  But, to date, besides the birth of my son, which my mother was able to witness, I cannot imagine a greater joy than to serve at my mother's feet as she transitioned.  I promise you, I would do it again without being asked.

Today is the day my mother expanded to become part of this universe that embraces us.  The beauty of her face, her life before death no longer escape me.  Every year brings better memories. Today, marks four years, and I will keep counting.

I love you, Mom.

  

Mom's Driver's License

Today has been absolutely wonderful so far, but now I'm crying (and blogging about it...go figure.)  It started with me taking the time to put on a skirt and some cute new peep-toe pumps, as I had decided to go to church for the first time in about six months and the second in as many years.  Then, I had a Starbuck's rendezvous with a friend.  It was quick, because I convinced him to go to church with me.  I got him all excited about the fact that you get there at eleven, you're out by noon; the music is good; the pastor is young; they use Powerpoint to help you get the key messages; you can wear jeans; and on and on.  Of course, when we get there we find out that actually you get there at ten, and you're out by eleven.  Oh well...good intentions.

Then, I head off solo to B&N and end up splurging on a bunch of books for this co-parenting workshop I'm doing for mothers next month.  By the time I'd read three books and purchased another five, I was on this incredble high.  So, of course, I decide to clean my office.  (I'll post before and after pics in my next post.)  I have been tweeting updates hourly to keep myself on track, because this is important.  I want to make changes in my environment that support and allow for the changes happening in my life right now.

So, back to the tears.  As I finally finish filing and shredding the massive amounts of paper in the Financial/Insurance to-be-filed box, I notice my mother's driver's license sitting on the floor.  I can remember when my son first found it in one of her wallets some time after she'd passed.  He was three.  He also found her cane, and excitedly announced, "Look what Grandma left us!!!"  It cracked me up.  This was a toy boon for him, a come-up.  A cane with which to annoy me and a card like Mommy's which he could use to play grown-up.  Cool!

Anyway, I just shredded the driver's license...four years later, almost.  And, now, I'm crying.  It makes no rational sense.  Um...she doesn't need it anymore, and he doesn't play with it.  Um...it was under a pile of clutter in the clutter museum you call an office.  What's the big deal, right?  Well, just last weekend, I also sold as many of her books as I could and her mug collection that I never appreciated.  Who knew mugs would fly off of a card table like that!?  They were my best sellers.  And, I was glad to get rid of them; although, again, it took me four years to let go of them, even though they were boxed up in my garage under still more clutter.

Here's the thing.  Letting go is hard, but the time always comes when it's the only thing you can do if you want to move forward.  I'm at a point in my life when I seem compelled to shut some things down that no longer serve me.  I haven't pulled my car into my garage in about three years.  Last weekend I did, but it meant getting rid of things that represented a life I no longer have, desires I no longer hold, habits I no longer want, beliefs I no longer believe, people who don't want to share the life I envision for myself or who have moved on to other phases of life, including the one after this.  It ain't easy; but my spirit is screaming at me that it is so necessary, because it is ready for me to finally soar to a place a little higher than where I stand today.  And, these things are keeping me rooted to ground that is shaky anyway.

So, as I sit here, posting through steamed up glasses, crying almost uncontrollably, with Ledisi serenading about "Someday,"  I am reminded that by shredding that license I have shed another layer that may have been hiding me from my truest self, keeping me in a space too small to hold all of me.  My mother doesn't need me to take care of her anymore.  That's over.  She's moved on and has hopefully found a joy that she'd forgotten existed.

Now, it's my turn.