My world came to a screeching halt on September 6th. The brakes had been on for several weeks...Mom not feeling well, not feeling right, really rundown, blood work abnormal, CT Scan, masses, biopsy...
The phone call from Mom made everything come to a complete standstill.
"It's Stage 4 cancer."
Seriously? How is this even possible? This is not how my life is supposed to go. This is not how things should be. She's supposed to be here. This isn't fair. This is wrong. Why is this happening?
My heart is broken. Absolutely fucking broken. I'm out of breath, yet still breathing. There's a constant lump in my throat. I feel only brief and infrequent moments of weightlessness until I remember. Until I realize that one of my greatest fears in life is currently my reality. That nothing will ever be the same. That my Mother will soon leave this Earth. The woman that I have loved, adored and admired all 29 years of my life. The woman that gave me love, comfort, laughs, smiles, and so much more since before the day I was born.
Why didn't the fucking chemo do anything? Why couldn't she have experienced any relief AT ALL? Why has she had to go through so much pain and discomfort? Why did this all happen so fast? Diagnosed in September and hospice in November...really?
I try to see the silver lining, to have faith that this is part of God's plan, to believe that the best is yet to come for her, that her eternity is better and greater for her than her life here, than my selfishness to want her here so damn badly. But my heart hurts, my frustration and anger rage, and I cannot come to peace with this. I'm not sure that I ever will.
And I absolutely cannot handle the fact that the world still spins. I'm so angry that everyone can just go about their lives, that this doesn't affect them, too. How unfair is that? Talking about how great things are, how awesome everything is. About how they had such great time doing this or doing that. Maybe I'm most upset with those that I thought would be more sympathetic, the people that I thought would be checking in, offering support, just plain old asking. They aren't. Are they pulling away? Unaffected? Unable to handle their own feelings with this?
Even so, I can't shake the feeling, the realization that I am stuck. Stuck in this damn nightmare. There is false (or perhaps very little real) joy in celebration of anything. I will always have a scar on my heart, my soul even. Life events are now marked with "before Mom got sick or after Mom got sick" and will be marked with "before Mom passed or after Mom passed".
What will it be like when she's gone? What will the pain be like then? Surely it cannot be less than it is now. Will it be then that my world actually stops? And I will feel shattered instead of just 'broken'? I can barely stand this pain now, how can I possibly manage anything greater?
