Growing up it was always my Mom and me. Always. She and my Dad has me when they were twenty; in 1970 twenty was the equivalent of thirty today. By the time I was about two they divorced. My Mom continued to be a single parent. She had not finished college so her full-time job was in real estate offices – secretary, assistant, office manager, go pick up anything girl, etc. It was the 70s so there were not enforced sexual harassment rules and Mom was a looker so she encountered groping, misogynistic, perverts at more than one job. She never endured any of it and was kind of a #timesup girl way back then. She would find another job the next day as she had rent to pay and a baby to feed.  Because she worked I was a daycare kid. I loved my daycare schools and have wonderful friends and memories of them. I never had the mom who was home after school with a snack and a “How was your day honey?”, but my Mom cared more for me than I can explain.

How could I imagine I would be faced with losing her midway through my adult life? But the universe has a way of pulling the rug out from under you in the blink of an eye. My story is not unique. Many have lost their parents to tragedy, illness, or accident. Many a lot younger than me. But for me it changed or reset the dynamic of my whole journey. Her foe was cancer and it came for her with force and with disregard for the gift of time. We, and I say we because it was always we even when I was too little to understand what she was explaining was happening to us; not her, but us. We learned of her cancer a mere two weeks almost to the day after walking out of the emergency room without her beloved, David. David was my stepfather and the love of her life. By some strange occurrence I was staying the night at her house on a Wednesday (work day) so I was there when she came to ask me what to do since she thought Dave was getting sick in the bathroom. Dave has been battling liver cancer for the past 7 months and it was on this night that he would not be able to fight any longer. So I was there when the firemen arrived and there when my Mom told him she loved him and we were right behind. I remember him asking her “Patty, get my glasses.” As if there would be more time for reading.

The diagnosis was delivered by a doctor you get than my 42 years and when I said, “You have to be fucking kidding me” his reply was “I’m sorry kiddo”. Really. The room was spinning, but my mother kept telling ME everything would be okay. Two weeks after losing my stepfather, who, by the way was one cool dude I’m faced with losing my Mom. What was happening?

But Cancer doesn’t care if you are ready or not. It doesn’t care what devastation it causes. It doesn’t care, it just kills. I think because she had no time to grieve for her husband she didn’t really ever fight. Cancer took my strong and amazing mother and killed her soul right out from under her. The next 10 months were a blur of bad news, setbacks, hospital visits, and learning more than I ever needed to know about Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma (BAC). A rare form of lung cancer that is not tied to smoking (she had been a smoker of course so the irony was not lost on us). Of course her form of cancer was not a candidate for surgery or chemo. Instead we waited as the Cancer migrated its way to her brain. Looking back now (it’s been 5 years), I realize this has wounded my soul more than I understood at the time. As she would get sicker she would forget me. She would stop being able to find any food that she could even bear to eat and she would wither away. The last card I have from her was for Easter. Her handwriting was weak and all over the page, but that was to be expected. The unexpected sorrow for me is that it was simply signed with her full name, not Love, Mom. I keep this card in our safe, but can’t look at it because I just so much want it to say I Love You, Shan. It does not.

People say grief is a strange thing and I know firsthand it is. I still feel like it happened yesterday and time doesn’t heal. It just moves on. It loves on leaving a daughter with the realization that she can’t ever pick up the phone and talk to her. She can’t laugh when she says “dunkey” (donkey) or “civil foil” (aluminum/silver foil). There is just a void in my heart, in my soul.

When I love I love hard. I don’t give up and I give love unconditionally. No mistake means me giving up on the ones I love. That is just life. We are not perfect. I am this way with my husband and my boys. I learned that from my Mom. All of it. I care for everyone before my self just as she did. I used to think of someone said “you are just like your mother” that it was a bit of a sleight. An indication of things she lacked so I must as well. That feeling is a big regret for me. She was a great person to be like. I have, in many ways, become my mother. It is okay. It is what I gain solace from in the emptiness.