As some of you know, I was an abused child. Abused mentally and physically by a sadistic and troubled biological mother.
I left home at eighteen, and never came back. Today, I have nothing to do with my biological mother whatsoever. Years spent in psychologists’ offices have helped me overcome the damage that was caused by my violent and frightening childhood.
My parents divorced when I was thirty years old. I remember my dad coming to me with the news. He wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t think badly of him for leaving her. In fact, I was glad that he had finally grown a pair of brass ones and stood up to her.
My Dad remarried about five years later to a wonderful woman who is caring, intelligent and loving.
I saw how happy she made him, and, because I knew her before I met Mary, I saw something in a woman that I had never seen before – a human side, a devoted and nurturing side, a forgiving, understanding and gentle side.
She became the mother to me that I had never had before. Imagine that? Finally getting a mother at the age of thirty-five?
I have told her many times that she is the BEST mother that I’ve ever had.
I loved her instantly, and she did the same with me.
When my Dad died six years ago, we became even closer.
She tells me that I am the spitting image of him, and that she sees all of his good traits and none of his bad traits in me. She confides in me, telling me how much my dad talked about me in private with her, and how proud he was of me. (My father NEVER paid compliments to a person’s face. Never. Until I heard these stories, I never even knew that he loved me, let alone that he was proud of me.)
She is the person that I can always go to and talk to, other than my Mary, about anything at all that is on my mind. My fears, my joys, my anxieties. She is a true and wonderful mother.
Isn’t it funny that at the age of fifty-five, it is still so important to me that I have a mom to talk to about such things?
About a month ago, she went to the doctor complaining about headaches and problems with her vision. A CT scan was ordered, and it was discovered that she has tumor in her brain. The tumor was determined to be 2 inches in diameter. It is wrapped around the main artery to the brain, and it is somehow attached to the skull.
The results of a full-body scan (PET scan) were presented yesterday. These showed the tumor to be a secondary tumor, but the scan revealed no trace of the primary tumor. The tumor is malignant, and it is a very aggressive cancer. Since the tumor is a secondary one, the cancer is systemic, which means that it traveled from one place in her body to the brain, which means that it is probably in her bone marrow or her lymph nodes or both.
The doctors will operate on July 9th to remove a portion of the tumor. (They have told her that, because of the location in the brain, they will not be able to remove the whole thing.)From the tumor cells, they will be able to determine in which organ the primary tumor resides.
The diagnosis, according to her doctor, is the worst possible one that could be, and the prognosis is scary.
That’s the whole ugly picture right now.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know whether to leave her alone or to visit with her. I don’t know what to say to her. When I spoke to her yesterday and she gave me the news, all I could say was, “I love you.”
Her response to that was, “Oh! I love you too, Jimmy!” (I’ve always been “Jimmy” to her. That’s what my dad called me.) Then she cried, and, like the big, macho man that I am, I cried right along with her.
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In spite of this horrible news, I still believe that life is good.
I believe that what is going to be is going to be, and it has to be accepted.
If my mom is going to die, she will have had a wonderful life, and she will be remembered as a truly incredible human being…especially to me.
I know that not everything that takes place has a reason. I know that, many times, life is not fair. However, I also know that nothing is wasted, and everything, including death and grief, is part of our human experience.
None of this reasoning takes away one iota of the grief and fear that is flowing through my body right now.
A part of me, of course, holds out a glimmer of hope that she will survive this trauma, but the reality is that she will not beat this thing.
However, there is something of a comfort, no matter how minuscule, in understanding that everything that occurs, somewhere and somehow, fits into the great cycle of things, and is part of this whole experience that is Life.