In memory of my mom, who died 12 years ago, I am sharing this autobiographical essay that I wrote six months after she passed away.
The rules were established before I was born. I am the eleventh child of thirteen children born to a devoted Catholic mother. The unspoken rules were as follows; the only feelings you were allowed to express were happy feelings. Any feelings that were not happy feelings were not to be expressed or discussed. You had to hold your chin up and be happy at all times. My mom was the maker and enforcer of the unspoken rules. I believe the rules were established because she was too busy with all of her responsibilities as mom and housewife to tend to the additional emotional needs of her children. I learned at an early age to put my feelings on the back burner and put on a happy face, so that I wouldn't cause my mom any problems.
The phone rang at 5:30pm on Friday, November 30, 2001. I answered the phone, "Hello." The voice on the other end responded, "Hi Barb, it's your Mom. I have some bad news." Before I could respond, I think to myself, Who's hurt? Who died? How am I going to react to the bad news she's going to share? How will the news impact my life?
My heart pounding, I responded, "What's wrong Mom?"
She said, "I went to the doctor today, and they found a spot on my lung."
At that moment, my heart drops to my feet and tears begin to well up in my eyes. With overwhelming sadness in my voice, I said "Oh, Mom." She lets me know right away that she doesn't want me to cry or she's going to hang up. I take a deep breath and shove my emotions deep inside me and bravely reply, "What does the spot on your lung mean?" I listen quietly, while she continues telling me about her visit to the doctor. She mentions that the spot is cancer and that she is scheduled for a biopsy the following week. As she's talking, the emotions I'm suppressing slowly emerge. She finally asks "Are you crying?" I whisper "No" and then clear my throat and audibly reply "No!" I ask her how she's feeling and she lets me know she's scared. We exchange I love you's and hang up the phone.
As soon as I hang up the phone, I know the coast is clear and I'm free to express my emotions. The tears flow freely from my eyes and a guttural sound bellows up from my stomach an out of my mouth. I feel sad, scared and alone. The feeling is familiar. I've felt this way a million times before after talking to my mom. Once again, I felt I had to put on the happy face for my mom because I didn't want to cause any problems, leaving me to feel like I had in the past, sad, scared and alone.
For days I am in a fog trying to understand the impact that my mom's cancer will have on my life. I replay the conversation we had on the phone over and over again in my head and I finally realize that she said something to me that she had never said to me before. When I asked her how she was feeling she said "I'm scared." In the 36 years that I have known my mom, she never talked about feeling scared. So admitting this to me was a major breakthrough. I realized that this was my chance to establish a new pattern with my mom.
The following week she had a biopsy and we received the news that the cancer was not only in her lungs but in her liver as well. They would not operate. She was expected to live for only six months to a year. Although there was no hope for her recovery, my mom continued to be very positive and upbeat. She announced to all of us that she was going to be the best cancer patient. She approached her illness the same way she approached everything else in her life. She held her chin up, put a smile on her face and only talked about the good things. My mom did not talk about feeling angry, I never saw her cry and she never again admitted that she was scared.
I continued to feel sad, scars and alone. I wanted so desperately to talk to my mom about how she was feeling but I was afraid to break her rules. I knew that I had to do something. It was at this point that I encourage my mom to take advantage of the services offered through the Wellness Community. After attending a few group therapy sessions, she told me that she was not comfortable talking about her feelings wit other people. She never went back to the sessions.
I made several more unsuccessful attempts to try to get her to talk about how she was feeling. I finally realized that I couldn't change my mom. I had to change myself. I decided to approach her and let her know how I was feeling. The process was not as easy as I had hoped. After several failed attempts, I finally mustered up the courage to let my mom know what was going on inside of me. We were sitting on the couch in the living room of her two-bedroom condo. She was half sitting, half-laying, her body exhausted from the many months of chemotherapy. I cuddled up next to her and held her hand. I could feel my heart pounding as I started to speak. I stopped, took a deep breath and I spoke the words that I had rehearsed in my head for so many months. She listened intently to what I was saying and when I finished she thanked me and told me she loved me. We hugged and I told her that I was here for her if she decided she wanted to share her feelings.
My mom and I spent a lot of time together in the last few weeks of her life. We shared a lot of laughs and I kept our conversation light. She never took me up on the offer to talk about how she was feeling. She was stoic till the end. My mom died on Saturday, July 13, 2002. As she lay peacefully in her bed, free from pain, there was a single tear cradled in the corner of her eye.
