I found out on Friday that the doctor's have told my mother that she has bone cancer, lung cancer and also cancer in the lymph nodes.
When I heard all this, I was numb.
I don't know if this is from the colon cancer escapade from two years ago or not. All I know is that my beautiful mother is in the hospital, facing all this.....and there is absolutely nothing that I can do.
I'm the kind of guy that feels like I have to fix all the world's problems. It's the nurturing instiinct within me at work I suppose. I've always wanted to take away everyone's boo-boos and make them all better.
But this one I can't begin to touch.
Tomorrow the doctors are going to fill us in on treatment options, information as to the rate of infection, and what the prognosis is. Then we will have a better idea of what we are up against.
God, I hate this.
Now, I don't mean this to sound "Woe Is Me," but there is something I have to say for the record.
Since I was a little boy of about 6, I have always been afraid that my parents were going to die and leave me alone -- TOTALLY. As I grew older, this feeling faded.....and when I was married to Lovey, I thought she would be with me through times when I faced my parents' mortality.
In 2004 I spent a lot of time helping her go through her dad's illness and his subsequent long goodbye. I held her at night.....I let her cry on my chest....I served as her sounding board about when she needed to vent.... It was a very long seven months. In the back of my mind, that old familiar fear of being alone when my parents got sick came into my mind.
It has hung there ever since.
AND, here I am.
ALONE.
I have no one to sit and talk to...to serve as my sounding board or to help me plan for the future.
I have no one to wrap their arms around me and let me sob in their chest.
I have no one to hold me at night.
It is scary....it's lonely......and it's all so very strange.
What am I going to do?
2 comments:
What are you going to do? Frank, I think you know. You are going to breath, eat, and move. Then you are going to tell you mother how much you love her. You will take one day at a time treasuring each day you have with her in your life as a divine gift, be it 6 weeks or 16 years. You will cry some (into any pillows, shoulders or chests that God may make available) and you will laugh some as God gives you grace. Not because it is “best” or “right” or whatever, but because that is what life is and it is all that any of us can do. And know that we will all be doing the same.
Rick
I suggest you call Lovey.
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