First the bus crash happened. 16 young people killed at the hands of a drowsy transport truck driver. How that triggered something deep in me, that sadness, that need to be there in that body strewn field and help when there was nothing I could have done. It was April and your birthday was coming soon. You were back in the hospital already. You were a former insurance adjuster administrator, comfortable talking about vehicle wrecks. I thought this would be an interesting conversation we could have as adults. How tragic and how awful, but somehow palatable if we could talk about it in scientific way, separate the sad from the facts and dissect them. But by then to be honest you were already pretty gone. Able to know that you were sad and angry about the circumstances of the crash but a little deeper in your own head and not able to come back to that adult place where we could talk. You mostly spoke of your nurses, and how they made you smile, you talked about your visitors and that was pretty much the most you could muster. You repeated a lot of the same conversations, but you never lost your ability to berate me, or to make me feel lesser in some way. How I always wanted to ask you if you had wished it was me and not Marc that had died. But I thought it too cruel a question and never did. Plus, selfishly, there was probably a little fear in me as to what your answer might have been.

So yes, you were back in the hospital at that time. I was glad because at least you were eating better and had attention. Someone to talk to, something positive. That was the second time you had fallen or had gone to the hospital that year because of a fall or not being able to get in or out of bed. It was hard to be this far away and know that something could happen. You had a neighbor visitor at home occasionally, but she was there mostly for her own good it seemed. To prove she was a great person for dealing with you. I always thanked her in my Christmas cards and other greetings, but she never took those thank yous, she came to expect them and shrug them away as if the words were not enough for her. But we were just doing what we could. Not to mention the money. She had you pay her son for odd jobs, $500 every two weeks give or take groceries, medications etc. You never wanted to leave the house because you were waiting for Marc to come home. It had been 7 years since he died but you were somehow still waiting. Remember how you wouldn’t let us put the kitchen knobs back on the drawers and cabinets because he was going to do it? Yeah that worked out well. I was getting nervous when you talked like that, but it just became part of how you spoke, not logical or sensical, but a mother’s wish for her dead son to return. Bitter and sad those conversations and again I wonder, did you wish it was me? So, there you were getting this test and that done in April of 2018 trying desperately to make connections with nurses who had known Marc. I guess it was as if they knew him, then somehow you could remember him and smile, instead of just knowing however deep down that he was gone. They knew him and that meant that he was still somewhere in the ether, in a conversation somewhere and that made him as alive to you as he had ever been.

They did a bunch of tests and I was calling your doctor under the radar, so you wouldn’t know because you wouldn’t tell me anything. Finally, she convinced you to let me know what was going on and then there it was. Cancer. Just like everyone else in that house it seemed. First Dad, then Marc, and now you. Admittedly I had somehow already known that was what it was. You were full of anger and sadness and sat still on that couch for seven years. You let it take you over I think. Maybe to get back to him. And Dad. Dad had his heart attack and died just three years before. Exhausted and broken hearted from both the loss of Marc and the loss of you. You disappeared into yourself when he died, and your narcissism grew to heights even I was surprised at. He waited on you hand and foot, trying to get a part of you back I think, but you never returned. He bought you the terribly bad food you wanted, got your medications, looked after the laundry and every other aspect of your life. People told him he looked tired all the time. On the day he died he had spent the afternoon on the phone yelling at the cable company and when he went to the pharmacy to get your meds after that he took the pill the pharmacist gave him but instead of going to the emergency right away as he should have to survive, he went home to you. And he never left you, again did he? Died right next to you in the bed while you slept. Woke you as he seized and somehow you managed to go get the phone to call 911 but it was too late. And your seemingly ungrateful daughter wasn’t answering her phone either. Never mind that we had been travelling at the time, had just gotten home after a terribly long drive and had left the phone in another room by mistake or by happenstance and found your 11 messages the next morning. You never let me forget it either. Brought it up all the time with me in the years since. Like somehow badgering me about it would have changed the history of it. The other neighbors sat with you that night and as we later learned she only feigned sadness on some level, hoping this would be the push you needed to get you into a home and give her the chance to sell yours, real estate agent that she was, so she could travel or whatever. How long did she try to get you to move after that? From the night he died to that last time you went into the hospital she tried and to no avail. We came out the next day, after Dad died. thanks to the magical gift of my best friend Rita. We flew to see you and help you and take your craziness. We went back to our lives after a time and felt like we needed more sleep then it was possible to get. We felt what Dad had experienced for years, in those short weeks and both thought we were going to die. Going home so far away was a blessing. We spoke pretty much every day you and I, and I endured your endless anger and narcissism. Then your best friend from California called one night to ask me to break up with you for her. She didn’t want to be your friend anymore, but she wanted me to tell you because she was afraid of your wrath. I was not surprised, but rather relieved in a way that someone else felt what I was feeling. That you were selfish and angry and basically just not a nice person if you had even ever been one. I agreed to do it but sheepishly backed out at the last minute to her, but ultimately, I did tell you that your friend would not be calling you anymore and your reaction was as common as any other. You were already convinced that she had slipped mentally and that was why this was happening. It wasn’t because she had called you and told you she was scared to have surgery and you told her that she didn’t know what fear was. And that she had no right to feel so dramatic for something so small. You really couldn’t see past the dirty front window and cloudy curtains that you started at each day. It was sad considering you had been friends since you were teenagers, and because she had stood up at your wedding with you. She died a while later and again when I told you, you really didn’t seem to care.

So now its about 5 or 6 moths after that and you are dying of Cancer. We knew we would have to come out to be with you, at least I did as the dutiful daughter. So, Derek packed up his office, I let my work know what was going on, and we were on the road within that week. My bosses told me that as a contractor if I left I might not have a job to come back to, but you are my Mother and being there for you was important. We decided to drive out, mostly because we didn’t know how long we would be there, and the weather was still nice at that time in late July. Derek and Dora, our sweet pup, and I, piled into the car for a five-day trip across the country to see you. You were supposed to have surgery while we were on the road, so my nerves were a bit rattled. We called every chance we could only to find the surgery had been put off again and again. We arrived, and you still had not had the surgery you needed but it was coming shortly. Doctors on the ward, seemed to be in short supply, but cheery nurses spoke of how well you were doing and how much food you had eaten. You joked about only getting the green Jell-O. So maybe it wasn’t as bad as we thought. Maybe you would be okay we could go back to our lives with the knowledge that you were cared for. Certainly, this time you would agree to go to a home. That was my hope and my wish, even though you still waited for Marc to come home and you couldn’t possibly be made to leave there just in case. But I couldn’t go home to my life knowing you were stuck in that house with no help. I tried to find home services that could maybe live in if you were so against going to a place. You know I do understand why you wanted to remain at home, but you never seemed to understand why I would want you to be in a place. We agreed to disagree on that one. But that eventuality never happened anyway. You would never set foot in that house again it turns out.

You were sent for more tests until you suddenly started spewing out bile. Then you had a tube for that, a colostomy bag, and various and assorted other things you were hooked up with to get you “better”. Then that day came when the doctor came to talk to me about your condition and said you were going to see a specialist and after that we would have to make some tough decisions. You had been a bit strange over the course of the treatments and were not always making sense. For a while we figured the Cancer has spread to your brain but in fact it was more the endless meds and treatments making you loopy at the time. We saw the specialist and he gave you the grave news. You were dying and not a lot would be able to help that, in fact there was nothing they could do for you. After that your doctor came to your room and he made me leave go out to speak to him privately. Man, you were upset with me about that. Not like I had much of a choice there, but I went. I had a decision to make. Full treatment (rearranging chairs on the Titanic), or palliative care – what he would want for his loved ones. So, I opted for that one. Rita told me that no matter what decision I made I would have doubts and she was right, I did and do to this day, but I am working on it. So palliative care began. You had been in so much pain that it was awful to watch. I went everyday to the hospital for the afternoons. Most of the stuff they needed to do to you like fix the bed or change your dressings happened in the AM, so the afternoon was good. I would get Derek to drop me off and then grab a wheelchair for myself and wheel myself up to your room each day. I don’t know if you understood that my back was in constant pain and my knees were shot. A herniated disc and osteoarthritis tried to hold me down, but I wasn’t having it. As much as it pained me I went day in and day out to be there for you. We had good days and bad. Days when you would think I was stupid and told me so, and that one day where you said you didn’t want to leave me alone. That was a hard day. I rolled down and waiting for Derek to come get me as usual and sobbed uncontrollably in the front of that entrance I always sat at. I told you I loved you every time I saw you and multiple times when I could. Even if you were not thinking it, I wanted you to know that whatever happened between us didn’t break us or even me, I needed you to know I was there, and you were not alone.

I am open to all things including the “other side” and wondered if Dad or even Marc would come for you. I was fascinated when you said you saw a dog in the hallway everyday that smiled at you as he passed your door. (To my knowledge there weren’t any dogs on the floor visiting but I wasn’t there 24/7). Then the time you told me Dad was sitting in the bleachers – just over there you pointed – and I wondered if that was the day he had come to get you. But nope, you hung on a bit longer. You did see a group of people playing hockey on the roof of the building next door. Hockey was important to you at some point, Dad had played, and you had loved to watch him and the professionals. You said Dora, our Boston Terrier/General Terror, was actually a beaver in disguise. We did giggle at that one. My friend visited you and brought you flowers which was nice, you always liked Jodi. I gave her Dad’s Boston Bruins stuff with you one day and you felt like you were doing a good thing. You fell asleep another day holding my hand and when my hand cramped up I wouldn’t move it. You never held my hand, so this was something I was going to cherish and not give up on even when it hurt. The last day your breathing was odd, rapid and shallow. I tried to ask the nurses what it meant but they wouldn’t say. I fell asleep that day in the wheelchair in your room. In the two plus months this went on I had never fallen asleep no matter how exhausted I was. But that day I did. When I woke and rolled out, you still hadn’t woken up. The nurse left a message at the house that you had passed just as I rolled away but they couldn’t catch me before I got to the elevator. We went back and got your things. As we drove away a literal cloud of monarch butterflies surrounded the car and the space around it. A sign that you knew I was there? Did you wait for me to leave before you went? Did Aunt Heather, your middle sister who died of Cancer 8 years to the day before you, come get you? I was in shock and stayed that way for some time. Though lawyers and bankers and neighbors who got out of pocket. After almost three months we turned the keys to my old house over to a downsizer and packed the car with important stuff and set off for another five day drive back to our lives.

I am struggling and writing helps.  Hopefully this helps me on the road to peace and drowns out the negative voices in my head.