This is the story of a woman diagnosed with lung cancer. This is the story of a woman who came home to Brookfield to die. This is the story of my mother.
You may have noticed that I have not written a new blog for a few weeks. My father, my brother, and I were preparing to bring my mother home. I hesitated in writing this blog, thinking that it would be too personal, too sad. Yet, writing about other things seemed too superficial, and in the past month, as I’ve had to tell other people about my mom, I’ve found that there is comfort in hearing others’ stories and in telling your own. So, I offer my mom’s story to others like me who are in the process of losing a parent or who may be losing someone they love to a terrible disease. You are not alone.
My mom has lived in Brookfield since 1974. Even after my father retired, she never wanted to leave Brookfield. She wanted to stay in the house that they built. She wanted to stay close to her children. She wanted to stay and baby sit her grandchildren. Occasionally, my brother or I would ask her if she ever intended to sell our family house. She always vowed that she wouldn’t leave until she died. She had no idea how true that statement would turn out to be. After having survived two bouts with breast cancer, my mother, a non-smoker, was diagnosed with primary lung cancer in June of 2005. By the time she was diagnosed, she was already at stage four, the last stage. Despite this, she underwent treatment for another year, living to see the birth of her third grandchild, another Christmas, my daughter’s first ballet recital, and her niece’s wedding this past July. But earlier this month, with her condition weakening rapidly and after a stay in the hospital, she said she was ready to come home, and so we brought her back to Brookfield.
Under hospice care, she is in her own bedroom, pictures of her husband, children, and grandchildren crowd every spare bit of dresser space that is not taken up by hospital supplies. My brother, his wife, and their children, in an act of supreme sacrifice, moved into our family home shortly after my mom’s diagnosis last year. My brother and his wife, both nurses, knew what was coming and knew that my dad would not be able to care for my mom on his own. So, now that she has reached this final stage, my mom can still hear the sounds of what once was her everyday life. My baby niece, my mom’s namesake, gurgles in the nursery in the next room. My daughter and my nephew play noisily in the living room. Sometimes one or both of them will run in to play on the floor by my mom’s bed or to stand on tiptoe by her side to give her a kiss. Sometimes they bicker like crazy, or sometimes they laugh like loons -- sounds of life going on amidst the click of the morphine pump and the whir of the oxygen machine.
There is nothing that makes you feel more like an adult than losing a parent. I find myself both nurturer and comforter to the woman who was those things to me for all my life. There are times when the morphine takes over, and when I look into my mom’s eyes, I realize that she isn’t really there. So, I wait for those moments of clarity when she recognizes me again, and I exhale, knowing that she is back one more time. She tells me she is afraid to die, and the grief that overwhelms me at times resurfaces, but I push it down. I take her hand, look at her steadily, and tell her that there is nothing to fear. I tell her that when the end comes she will no longer be afraid. In reassuring her, I try and reassure myself.
The only regret that I have is for my daughter, who will only possess vague memories, at best, of the grandmother who loved her. My husband and I have been trying to prepare her by telling her that her “Lola” (grandmother in Filipino) is going to live with God and that she won’t be able to come back and see us anymore. Of course, as a preschooler, she thinks about this and responds with a barrage of questions, both heartbreaking and humorous. Will she be able to visit her Lola? Are there bathrobes in Heaven? Will there be a house for Lola to live in? Can she (my daughter) take her teddy bear when she goes to God? Because she is so serious, I answer in kind. No, you won’t be able to visit. I don’t know if you need bathrobes in Heaven. Yes, Lola will live in a beautiful house, and yes, I think God allows teddy bears.
So, this is my mother’s story. Sadly, it seems that everyone has a “cancer” story. It’s kind of like that six degrees of separation theory, but it’s more like two degrees or less with this disease. Yet, there is hope, even if it’s not for my mom. She lived longer than expected because of a new chemo drug, and I know that new treatments and new medications are being developed for the future. I also read recently of a woman in the Milwaukee area who while pregnant discovered that she had cancer. Advances in research allowed her to keep her baby and undergo chemo at the same time.
And then there is the ultimate hope, life after death. I'm not going to get into a debate over whether that truly exists, but after seeing what my mom went through, I gotta believe there's a better world than this. Living in a world where poverty, war, and terrible disease exist, wouldn't you? So, I believe that I will see my mom again one day. I believe that wherever she is, she will be reunited with our beloved family dog. And I believe that there are teddy bears in heaven.
