Anger and confusion

I am so sick today, and I had to get tested for the flu. It came out negative, but I am completely shocked how miserable I am and what in the world could be causing this. I'm coughing really deep from my lungs, I have a fever, and my body is so achy it's uncomfortable to even lay in my bed. I am dehydrated, and my kidneys are definitely feeling it. Every time I cough, it feels like someone's punching my left kidney. Among being really sick, I am also really sad today, thinking about how sick my mom was.

The Tuesday night that they moved her to ICU, she kept saying how badly her back hurt. Her lower back on the right hand side. Her kidneys were shutting down, and they were letting her know. She was in so much pain, between that and her throat and lips, she kept crying on and off when she was conscious enough to realize. My poor girl. She was so strong.

Feeling this mild pain in my back and knowing how uncomfortable it is, I can't even begin to imagine how she felt. How much it hurt. How scared she was.

I had to go to the doctor today, and it was amazing to me how sad and helpless I felt driving there by myself. This really is a job only for a mother, I suppose. But it made me so sad not to have her there with me. I thought about her a lot as I sat in the waiting room in the exam room by myself. We would have sat there and talked, and regardless of how I was feeling, she would have made me laugh. She would have taken me to the pharmacy and then back home, and even though I'm 23, I would have been comforted by that. But instead, I drove myself there, sat in silence in the room, and drove myself home again. It's amazing how something as simple as driving yourself to the doctor makes you realize the reality of your life and what is no longer in it.

Little things that would have otherwise gone unnoticed conjure this kind of sadness and loss. Today, I got some energy to do a load of laundry, and when I was sorting my pile, I came across one of my mom's nightgowns. It is white and long and lacy, and she had about eight of the same one. I raised it to my face and smelled it, but all I could smell was laundry detergent and not her. I folded it and put it in between some of my shirts for safe keeping. Yesterday, it was cold and rainy and dreary, a typical October day, and all I could think about was my mom’s broccoli cheddar noodle soup. You know how sometimes the weather makes you think about eating a particular food? Her soup was so perfect for this kind of weather, and I know that if she were alive and home now, that soup would have been cooking on the stove yesterday. A couple of days ago I found her favorite candle, and today I lit it in my room. My whole room smells like lemon cookies and vanilla pound cake, and the scent takes me back to last Fall when she had it lit all the time in our kitchen. It is amazing how my life was so different just a year ago. Even just seven months ago. Even three weeks ago. Things are so different now.

Tomorrow my family and I are visiting a photo exhibit that features my aunt Polly. Before she died, she agreed to be featured in a photo story about her death and about our family. The pictures were chosen to be displayed in this exhibit, and I am so happy that her memory can live on in such a way. I haven’t seen the pictures yet, but I am positive that her strength and dignity in death will be easily translated. My mom wanted to see this exhibit so badly, and I kept telling her that I would take her when she got out of the hospital. At this time, she would have been staying in Hope Lodge near the Cleveland Clinic, letting her bone marrow re-populate and gaining her strength back from the transplant. I was going to take her on a road trip to see her sister’s exhibit, and it was something she was looking forward to, something to aim for.

I’m not sure what to expect tomorrow and the anticipation of it all is making me really nervous. Between still feeling so miserable and still missing my mom like crazy, while seeing my aunt Polly’s face in photos about her death, and wishing so badly my mom was by my side to see them…I’m not sure how I’ll feel. I can only imagine that it will be quite emotional and maybe even a little overwhelming for me.

Today I put all of my sympathy cards, along with some cards I saved from my mom, in a bag so I could keep everything together and safe. I had the memory card from aunt Polly’s funeral and I put it in the bag with my mom’s (that card you pick up at the funeral with their picture, date of birth, date of death, and a poem on the back, typically). I looked at all of the memories and sadness in this bag, and I felt so sorry for myself and my family. To think about all of the loss and tragedy we have had in our family, to have watched our loved ones die so miserably from cancer, and at such a young age, and so close together…everything seems so wrong and so cruel.

My mind is still so boggled by all of it. I was still trying to make sense of losing aunt Polly when my mom was diagnosed and still months later during my mom’s transplant. While I was afraid that I would lose her too, I never really imagined that it would happen, especially after what our family had already gone through. I tried to fight against all the things I learned in school, against my knowledge of sepsis and organ failure and leukemia and infections. I tried so hard not to believe it, not to let it happen. I will never understand. I hope one day that things make sense for me and that I am clear on the reasons behind all of this. My friend told me that sometimes God loves people so much that He takes them earlier than their time because He wants them closer to Him. I am struggling with this idea alone, let alone why it would happen only six months after losing my aunt to the same disease. Another friend told me that she thought maybe aunt Polly was sad to be without her sisters. I like this idea better.

As I try to overcome this anger and confusion, I keep two important thoughts in my mind: I will always be proud of how hard my mom fought to live, to be with us, and that now, her and my aunt Polly are together again in Heaven. I am so proud of her, and I am so happy for her.

How I see it

I had to get up really early this morning to go to the hospital for some tests. Nothing big, just to rule out exercise-induced asthma. So I had to have a chest x-ray and an echo of my heart. I didn’t think anything about walking into the hospital, because even though I have sworn off the clinical aspect of my job and working with patients in order to move on from this whole ordeal, I wasn’t doing anything like that this morning. No big deal. I was so wrong.

In the changing room where I put on my gown, immediately I was flooded with memories of my mom. The same blue hospital gown she had to wear every month during her chemo treatments. The smell in the room. Even though I was in a completely different hospital, in a different city even, the smell was the exact same. It smelled like her room, her skin. That hospital smell. I felt my heart start to skip. I needed to leave. But, I stood there for a second, took a reallllyyyy long, deep breath, and re-focused myself. I walked out of the changing room. The chest x-ray took about five minutes, and I was sent on my way to the Heart Center to have my echo done.

Another blue hospital gown. No bra. This sounds silly, but my mom and I both have a deep affinity for our bras. Most women come home from work and the first item on their agenda is to take off their bra and put on a sweatshirt. Not us. She hated not being able to wear her bra in the hospital, and I know that made her really uncomfortable on a day-to-day basis. The idea of being that uncomfortable almost every day for nearly seven months gives me the creeps. Let me just say for the record, I love my bra and all that it has to offer! Like comfort, for one, which I did not have this morning. After I changed, I turned around to find the echo machine sitting there, and because it wasn’t reading any type of cardio-activity, it showed a flatline. I just stared at it. My brain took me back to the morning my mom passed away. She lay on the bed, gone from the world, but still attached to machines monitoring her activity. She had flatlined. Alarms were going off. One nurse in the room looked at the other and asked, in a frustrated tone, “You wanna turn those alarms off?” He flicked the switch, and the monitor went black. But two red lights still blinked madly, alternating back and forth to let them know that something wasn’t quite right. Nothing was right that morning. I no longer had a mother. I wanted to put her bra back on for her. Just to give her some peace of mind.

I was brought back to life by the radiology tech that entered the room. “OK, all set?” she asked. She had me lay down on my left side with my left arm out of my gown and then covered me up with the warmest blanket I’ve ever felt. I was so comfortable and snuggly, and the good moment was immediately ruined by the feeling of cold, wet gel across my chest, put there by a complete stranger. While this was only just a small violation of my privacy, and in hindsight, not a big deal at all, I couldn’t help but think about my mom and all of the separate, but overwhelming number, of incidences in which her privacy was violated, all by a new stranger each time. There is no dignity in the hospital setting. It’s all business. I hate that.

I watched my heart beat to provide me with life, right there on a tiny screen in front of me. Maybe I am a huge nerd, or I will always love the medical field, but I was in complete awe, able to see my valves and chambers working simultaneously to pump blood in and out, to provide my body with oxygen and nutrients, all on its own. If you are not marveled by this, perhaps you have not thought about it long enough. It is completely fascinating. And to watch it happening in live time right in front of you! I watched as she mapped out each chamber, measured the flow of my valves. It is amazing to think that that movement, that subconscious movement that keeps you alive, actually stops. I tried to picture it completely still. How odd to think that if they would have done that very same test to my mom that hers would have been still. No longer providing her life. No longer working subconsciously as it should. I am still in shock that hers is no longer beating like mine is.

The tech announced that the test was finished, and I asked her if everything looked “pretty solid” in there. She said she couldn’t tell me anything. I am not, in any way shape or form, concerned about my heart’s ability to beat. However, for someone diagnosed with cancer or for someone whose life literally hangs in the balance of knowing if their heart is strong enough to handle a bone marrow transplant, the idea of not being provided with some type of answer is baffling. “You’ll have to wait about 4 days before your doctor will know anything. I’ll leave the room, so you can get dressed.” Thanks a mill, lady.

I got dressed, bra and all, and walked out of the Heart Center, with my mission about to begin. Two cards in my hand. One addressed to my mom’s Oncologist. Another addressed to the 6th floor Oncology Wing. They were thank-yous for taking such great care of my mom. She really loved them, especially the girls on 6. I walked down the hallway to the Oncologist office, separated from the hospital by huge wooden doors. My heart began to pound noticeably in my chest as the polished doors came into view. I stood at the desk, and the receptionist, who recognized me instantly, pouted out her lips and used the “sad” voice to ask how I was doing as she scooped my hands in hers. I gave her the card, accepted her condolences, and left as soon as I could without being completely rude. I had to get out of there.

I made it back out to the main lobby and rode the elevators up to the 6th floor, took a sharp right and headed down the hallway that became a second home for me nearly seven months ago. A person with leukemia endures extremely long stays in the hospital, unlike most others with different types of cancer. Night and day, always on 6. We grew to know and love the staff on that floor, and by “staff” I am not only talking about the nurses. The aides, like the nurses, loved my mom and even brought her presents from time to time. One woman in particular, on housekeeping staff, got to know my mom so well that she often shared stories of her dates-from-hell and weekend adventures with her daughter while she mopped my mom’s floor. My mom adored her, especially. She even came to her funeral, seeing as she adored her equally as much.

I walked past the floor’s bulletin board that often featured a fundraising drive for cancer research, and incidentally, this month, there were bras stapled all over it! Some joke that had to do with support. Looking back on it now, it was clever, and under any other circumstances, I would probably have laughed. I found three nurses I recognized sitting at the station. I told them who I was and gave them the card. More pouty faces, more sad voices. I just forced a weak smile and walked away as fast as I could. I made it about halfway down the hallway when one of them caught up with me, crying, and she reached out to give me a hug. I obliged, but heard a rapid response being called over the PA and grew increasingly more upset, being bombarded with all of the memories from my mom’s stay on the floor, which unfortunately included a rapid response during her first chemo treatment. She told me how much she loved my mom, how much she was going to miss her, and that if my family needed anything…my focus went blank. I heard the rapid response team gallop behind me, and all I could think about was my mom panicking, struggling to breathe, convulsing on her bed from an allergic reaction to her first chemo. I tried my best to listen to this woman, to appear as though I was paying attention to her. I did the smile-and-nod. We hugged again. Another forced smile. Freedom.

I slept nearly all day, with my pumpkin spice candle burning next to me. I am so sad that the field I love so much is tainted with unsettling memories that lurk around every corner. If she knew, she would feel so guilty, like it was her fault. She was so selfless that sometimes, it was almost silly. I know she is up in Heaven worrying about this. I just know it. About my heart tests. About my mental stability. About how sorry she is to “put me through this,” as she so often said after her diagnosis. Just worrying herself sick over it. I worry about her just as much, knowing that she has probably not settled into Heaven as well as I would like her to be. I hope that eventually she will stop worrying and enjoy all that it has to offer.

I picture her without hair, because I actually like her better that way, with her white sparkly ballcap on, sitting at a wooden kitchen table with aunt Polly, who has hair, coincidentally. They are eating Pizza Oven pizza, drinking Diet Pepsi, and looking at old pictures and laughing. Aunt Polly does not have a bra on underneath her green Jiminy Cricket sweatshirt. Mom most definitely has her bra on and is 100% completely comfortable and free of worry. That is how I see it.

Pumpkin spice candles

I am sitting in my bed with a marble candle holder sitting on my chest, with my chin down, holding it in place while I type. Kind of like that game you played when you were little where you had to hold a foam ball in the crook of your neck and carry it somewhere. It is cold, it is heavy, a light sand color with browns and blacks swirled through…and it has a portion of my mother’s ashes sealed inside. It is sitting over my heart. I feel so calm.

Tonight when I got home, it was sitting on our kitchen counter in a blue, velvet box. Dad asked, “Did you see your thing for mom there?” I didn’t really understand what he was asking, but when I saw the box I understood and my heart dropped. Just another reminder that she is gone. I picked it up and pressed it close, and all of the sudden I let this wave of emotion swarm over me, all different kinds of emotions. I was so heart-broken, so sad for her still, but so happy to have even just a small piece of her so near me. Regardless of its form, it is her. All I’ve wanted to do is hug her or touch her or just be near her. This candle, while it is not her, is what I have of her. She is sitting over my heart. I feel so calm.

Tonight as I waited for my psychologist appointment, I watched a mother and a daughter in the waiting room. They looked exactly the same. The daughter was filling out paper work. The mother was reading a magazine. As the daughter finished her paper work, she yanked it off the clipboard and tossed it onto her mom’s magazine. Her mom would glance at her daughter, pick up the piece of paper, and stack it neatly on top of her lap. They repeated this about six times, each time frustrating me more and more. Of course, I do not know their history or why they were also sitting in a psychologist’s office. But I do know that I was sad for them. Mostly for the mother. I wonder how she feels when someone tells her she looks just like her mother. I love when people tell me that. So many times I see girls treat their mom’s terribly, and it is repulsive to me. It always has been, but now, it stirs a little more significance into the mix. What if that mother and daughter drove out of the parking lot and were involved in a horrific car accident, taking the mother’s life. Would she regret treating her mother the way she did? Would she even care? I’m so saddened to see these types of relationships. I feel so bad that they lack what my mom and I had. I truly believe that my love for her, beyond what some mothers and daughters, sadly, will ever even know, is why I am able to be so strong through all of this.

My mom and I had the most perfect connection, strengthened by her breast cancer diagnosis nine years ago. It only grew stronger with each day that followed, until March 16^th of this year. On that day, as we heard the word, “leukemia,” that bond was poured with cement and sealed shut. Nothing was going to separate me from my mom. Not chemotherapy. Not sleeping in different cities. Not a long-distance relationship. Not fear. Not cancer. I believed that. Until three weeks ago from tonight. That night, as I looked at my mom’s face, and saw her struggling, and heard the word “sepsis,” I knew we were going to be separated. She said, “I’m scared. I don’t want to die.” Sometimes, “Please help me. I don’t want to die. Please…” as she cried. I watched her fear emerge, more and more each hour, and my heart hurt so badly for her that it never occurred to me that within a day’s time, I might find my heart hurting for itself. As I sat in the waiting room, shaking and shattered, my heart was left in her room, gone from this Earth along with her spirit.

I pray that others see how my mom and I were together or were somehow lucky enough to understand our bond. I hope that people who unfortunately did not understand walked away from her funeral knowing full-well its greatness. My words, during her service, and my words now and in previous posts, hold her memory alive and keep our love strong, but hopefully will display a different perspective on a mother-child relationship. I hope that, while people may be sad for my mom and I to be separated, they can strengthen their own relationship and strive for what we had. Because, there is nothing more uplifting and more fulfilling than the undying love of a mother and when a child returns that love for her in exactly the same way. Nothing more heartfelt than a moment between a mother and her daughter, saying their final good-byes and I-love-yous years before they were meant to come. I will never understand why such a love was interrupted. My mom used to tell me that my age was the “most exciting it will ever be. Now is when you grow up, move out, and become who you want to be.” This time in my life couldn’t be more sorrowful. More devastating. More heart-breaking.

My 24^th birthday is next week. I graduate in May. My boyfriend and I are talking about getting married. I am working on starting a career path. I want a job, financial stability, a career I love, a safe, quiet place to call my own. I want to get married, and I want to adopt at least one child. This is the most exciting time of my life?

I will not get to glance at my mom in the stands as I walk across the stage to get my diploma for my Masters. I will not get to call her and let her know of our engagement, “Guess what? You were right! I can’t believe it! I can’t wait for you to see it!” (She had a funny prediction of when he might propose). I will not get to see my mom with a stack of bridal magazines in front of her, pouring over images and ideas of ways to make everything perfect, as she always did. I will not get to see her choke back tears as I try on my wedding gown for the first time, which would no doubt have been one that I didn’t even consider but she begged me to try on---and it was the perfect one. (This is how all of our prom dress shopping trips turned out, and how I pictured the sacred mom-and-daughter wedding dress trip). I will never get to tell her, “Oh my God, I got the job! The one I was dying for!” I can nearly hear her now, “Ugh, thank God. I knew you would. I’m so proud of you, I always have been. OK, now, let’s go shopping.” I wanted to introduce her to her grandchild, and whether it would be my own or adopted, she would be so thrilled and instantly in love. I will never get to watch her cradling a baby in her arms, in a way only a grandmother could, renewing her love for me all over again and kindling a newer love for the baby. I think out of all the things we will miss out on as a mother-daughter pair, the wedding and the baby are what kill me the most. I am not a mother, but I am completely 100% positive that a large part of the reason she fought so hard was to be alive to see these two moments in my life. I still, three weeks later, have even more sadness for her, that she was so abruptly taken and will miss out on so many things we still had left to do.

Many people, women, in particular, have become awfully emotional with me as we discuss this exact thought. Missing out on a daughter growing up, with all of the big moments in life still yet to be completed. All of them tend to react the same way. They cock their head to the side, put their hand up to their chest, their eyes get teary, and they shake their head as they say, “Oh, I just can’t imagine. I’m in my fifties, and I still have my mom. I don’t know what I would do without her. Or if my daughter had to be here without me.” (That last part gets them pretty good—thinking of their own daughter). This somehow makes me sadder, provoking such a sad realization for other people, some I barely even know. However, it is nice to know that they are sad for me, and not just in a disconnected, pity-type of way but in a mother-daughter-type of way. I am happy to know that there are others who care just as much as I do and worry about facing the same things. There are just some things that, no matter what, will be mother-daughter things. I, unfortunately, will never know these types of things. I certainly hope that, when I finally get to do them myself, they will not lack the excitement and wonder they were meant for. Without my mom there, I’m sure they will not be as shiny as they could have been if she was sitting next to me.

However, I know she’ll always be “there,” next to me, but in a completely different sense.

My candle is still sitting my chest. If I sit still enough, I can watch it shake slightly with every heartbeat. This weekend I bought pumpkin spice tealights for it. She loved Fall, and she had several different pumpkin candles in our house. They were her favorite. I figure I should probably put only her favorites in her candle, since “her candle” now has an altogether new meaning to it.

Yesterday I had a really rough day, which was pretty clear in my last post. Today, it started a little rocky and really hit its peak of fabulousness when I locked both sets of keys in my car today while I was running. Luckily, I was able to use my friend’s phone to call the police. Boda-bing, boda-boom. Open in less than a minute. My frustration, though, from realizing I had done something so ridiculous mixed with my usual tension and anxiety, helped me run two solid miles today. And it was a good run. I felt great afterwards, with energy still, even from so many hours ago. On a negative note, my iPod froze shortly after saving my workout and didn’t load into my training program. Huge bummer. But at least I know I did it. Today was a much better today.

This morning, on my way to school, a woman pulled up behind me, and she was singing with such animation, and all of the sudden, she started to move her hands to the tempo, not dancing, but directing a choir. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. When I sing in my car, I feel awkward singing when I know people can see me, especially sitting at red lights. But not this woman. She acted like an entire concert choir was crammed into her Acura SUV and she was directing them like they were performing at the Grammys. I found this so intriguing to watch and so lovable. Oh, to be this happy.

I, incidentally, have not sung in my care in nearly a month. My heart hasn’t been in it. What’s great about singing in your car is that it’s just you, no one to judge you, no one to impress, just you. Singing comes best through the soul, when you are feeling completely content and full of joy. It is felt with heavy metal, oldies, rock and roll, whatever. Singing is singing. The privateness of your car allows you to sing in a completely raw, unrehearsed way that is able to fill your heart to the brim with all things good. I watched that woman this morning and I thought, “Whoa. She is super happy!” And I felt my heart twinge. I hadn’t sung in so long. I wasn’t happy. Seeing people in their element sometimes really shows you how much yours is lacking.

Tonight, I sang on my way home. As loud as I wanted to, to whatever I wanted to, and I didn’t try to be good, and I wasn’t. But I was happy. Such a little moment, singing in your car. It may be nothing to some people, so unconscious and completely unnoticed. But when you realize you haven’t done it in so long, sang quietly by yourself in your car, you start to realize that this small act strongly parallels with being happy. I am taking this as a very good sign that I am starting to be happy again. Here and there. But that’s enough, for now. Better than none at all. Thank you Electric Touch, Sara Bareilles, and Missy Higgins.

My candle holder has been sitting to long on my chest it has made a circle-shaped imprint on my skin. I am going to take it off of my skin, and to be honest, while I know she is not actually touching me, which I would give anything for, it is not healthy to attach ourselves to objects that hold such strong memories. I literally feel a slight pang of panic knowing it won’t actually be touching me anymore, so I can put it on my night stand and light it. That just doesn’t feel close enough to me. However, the blanket, sweatshirt, pair of pajamas, and two hats of hers that are in my bed don’t feel close enough to me either. I think this is the hardest part of accepting loss is accepting the fact that you will no longer again touch their skin. I miss her touch so much it aches, and as I am left without her touch every day, my heart, what’s left of it, sinks lower and lower. I think my first step towards acceptance is to take this candle holder off of my chest and place it on a coaster on my night stand. She would be mad if I sat it directly on the wood without something underneath it. I will light a pumpkin spice candle, lovingly snuggled into the marble holder, and I will be comforted by the warm glow of the flame and the soft scent that is so appropriate for this time of year, and I will feel comforted, knowing that I am enjoying a moment that she would have equally just as much enjoyed. Fall. The scent of spiced pumpkin. A warm glow in the darkness. She is near me.

Hope in whose eyes?

Today was my first day back to my internship. I was very nervous, and I didn't know what to expect, and I ended up laying in bed, wide awake, until almost 5 o'clock in the morning. I knew I needed to take my sleeping pill, but by the time I realized, it was very late and I was worried it wouldn't wear off by the time I needed to wake up. When my alarm went off this morning, I almost cried.

The hospital I am doing my internship at is where I used to work nearly two years ago, so I am friends with alot of people there. So, walking into the hospital without seeing someone I know isn't exactly realistic thinking. Everywhere I turned, there was someone else. And they all had the same look on their face, used the same "Oh, hi honey..." sad undertone with their arms reached out to me. I hope this doesn't sound angry. I was not angry. But this is what I was afraid of, having to force a trooper-like smile and greet them and say thank you as they hugged me. Don't get me wrong. I am definitely appreciative of the support. But it's hard to put things behind you and move on when you are reminded all over again of the life you are currently living, and it just so happens to be one person less. And that person is your mom.

About half-way through the day, I thought to myself, "This isn't so bad. I can do this." I walked out of there with a sigh of relief and on my way to the park to run. I stretched as I let the warm October sun cascade a shadow across the parking lot, and I set off. Immediately everything was wrong. My muscles ached, I couldn't catch my breath, my right knee was sore. I wanted to stop, hardly even five minutes in. I thought about my mom, how much she wanted to stop. How many times she told me she wanted to go home, how many time she cried out of fear and exhaustion but kept on with treatment, how she never stopped being brave and never stopped giving up, all the way into the ICU. I ran my mile. I finished. But it wasn't a run I was proud of. I was so glad it was over.

On my way to dinner with my boyfriend, I had an image, one I'd stuffed far away in the corners of my memory. Because it was absolutely heart-breaking. Actually, there are several different images. They are all of my mom, after my grandma died. I remember her crying, sitting on her bed with me and saying, "I don't have a mommy anymore." Her dad had passed away many years ago. She said, "I don't have my parents anymore. I'm an orphan." You know how, no matter how old you are, when your mom cries, it rips at your heart and breaks it just enough to almost mimic what they are feeling? That is how these images made me feel tonight, sitting in the car. The next image is of me and my parents sitting in my dad's parents' living room. My grandma is hugging my mom, as if she were her own child, her own baby, and my mom cried into her sweater, and my grandma patted her head and said, "I know. I know. It's hard." And my mom sobbed, her heart broken from the fresh sting of losing her mother. The last is of my mom walking into the funeral home and her first glance at seeing her mother laying in the casket. She stopped in the hallway, with the room and the casket to the right, and she stood there and sobbed. Loud, heavy, heart-breaking, gut-wrenching sobs. The kind that make you feel like you have to leave the room. All for her mother. And I remember how I felt for her, how sad I was for her although I could not fully understand. She was almost 50.

I got a card that said no matter how old you are, when your mom passes away you feel like you are a scared, lost child all over again.

I am 23. I no longer have a mother. This realization is so difficult to grasp, to truly understand, although it is doing a fine job at attempting to settle in. I am definitely scared, and I am definitely lost. I missed her so much today, I called her voicemail twice at my internship, once at my boyfriend's house, and once on the way home tonight. I sleep with her tinkerbell blanket my aunt Janny made for her last Christmas, the one she had with her at the hospital. I also sleep with one of her favorite tinkerbell sweatshirts, the one I slept with when she was first diagnosed. They don't smell like her though. I wish they did. My mom wore Shalimar perfume, baby powder-scented deodorant, and Vanilla Lace body lotion, and she smelled so light and pleasant, and you could detect every note of what she had on. I miss her so much sometimes that I do not understand how I will even wake up tomorrow. You feel as if a part of you dies with them. You look at them, looking so peaceful, no heartbeat, no slow rhythmic ups and downs of their chest. Nothing, but still somehow peaceful. But then this pit, this ache starts to build so deep in your body, and you realize that you are no longer whole anymore. I have been told by many that that hole will never actually be repaired, that after your mom dies, a part of you always remains lost, although you "recover." I am slowly starting to understand what they meant more and more each day.

Tonight on my way home, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror. My eyes, in particular. They were bloodshot from exhaustion, glazed over, and puffy from crying. And it hit me: Hope in whose eyes? When I first came up with that name, I wanted it to be a little misunderstood, a little thought-provoking. In my mom's eyes? In mine? Maybe both? Truly, I didn't even know for sure, but I liked the way it sounded.
She had such hope in her eyes, though. She really did. She was frightened, but she had a completely positive outlook and was convinced of her recovery. After our first meeting with the doctors in Cleveland Clinic, I felt as if they had given her a death sentence, and she knew by the look on my face that I had heard too much. I was upset, and she looked at me and asked, "Did we even talk to the same people in there?"

Maybe I'm negative. Maybe I'm realistic. Maybe I have seen too many things at work and have learned too many things in class. I forced myself to have hope, although I didn't always believe it. Maybe that title was a way of trying to convince myself. All I know is that tonight, the look of my eyes was so eerie to me and so shocking, that I wondered if I would ever have hope in my eyes again. With the roller coaster I am riding day-to-day, who knows. Tonight I do not feel as though I will. Tomorrow may be a different story. And I'll be there to try and figure it out.

No room for extra

Today, I came home from my girls' weekend in Cleveland. We spent three nights together, and we called it "Operation: Fix Julia's Heart," and we did nothing but eat junk food and lay around in bed and snuggle and watch movies. And it was fantastic. I also managed to fit in some running and painting and plenty of sleeping. I have to say that I most definitely feel somewhat better. I guess as best as I could feel in this situation.

This morning, I decided to go running. I had to take two days off because I got my tattoo on my foot, and I needed to give it a break. But this morning, I felt ready to go. I ran two miles and walked one. On my last lap, I heard a muffled sound, "No, no, no" in a panicky, scratchy voice. I literally looked around to see if someone was right behind me, it sounded so close. I could hear it over my iPod. Then I had pictures of my mom panicking, me holding her hands down so she wouldn't take her breathing mask off, and her saying "No, no, no" over and over. I whispered, "Shhhh, it's OK," as I struggled back tears and held both of her hands in mine. I am slightly bothered that I heard that in my head, without even first thinking about those memories to prompt this. And of course I feel a little psychotic, too. I think I will take this as a sign that I have not let myself remember, digest, and bury these pictures like a healthy, grieving person should. I will try harder. But I can't help but want to protect myself from them, either. They are scary. And I was feeling so good. It was like that memory forced me to relive it. Like I was getting too close to feeling normal again. Maybe I have some more processing to do.

Today when I got home from Cleveland, my heart sank as I realized I forgot to call my dad and ask him to feed my fish. Her name is Jackie O. She is actually a boy, a beta fish, because the boys are so much prettier than the girls, with their long, flowing fins...I know this sounds terrible, but I'm sure that Jackie, which could be a boy's or a girl's name, did not know the difference. She was probably just happy to have a home and someone to love her. If she could even think that intelligently. But I completely neglected her this weekend. Nearly 4 days without food. When I ran up to my room, I saw her, dead, floating at the top of her bowl. I cried for almost twenty minutes about this. I felt so guilty, for buying this living creature, making an understood promise to care for it, and I let it die. Of course, there were more feelings, more unexplainable, subconscious feelings, that prompted this crying fit, but I did really feel so awful. I shook the bowl a few times, just to make sure she was really gone. She was.

I am an unfit mother. I am so sad I let her die like that.

I will, of course, be talking to my psychologist about all of this. Just to make sure it's normal. My boyfriend is a psych nurse. We now joke that he is dating one of his "patients." I know that in reality this really isn't all that funny, but it is in fact my reality, and we either joke about it or we cry, right? I choose to joke.

What else can you do but accept, process, heal, remember, live, and joke? All the rest is just extra. Grieving doesn't really leave any room for extra.

What would you do to live?

I always wondered how I would behave if I were told I had cancer. After watching my aunt Polly suffer for so long but brave through treatments with such an inspirational attitude (twice), and then again watching my mom do the same (twice), I wonder if I would be able to battle through it the way they did. It makes me wonder what I would do to live, what I would do to be as strong as them. Everyone always says, "Oh, I wouldn't be like that" or "I know exactly what I would do" but the thing is, you really never know how you would behave and what exactly you would do after you hear the words, "You have cancer."

The night my mom was diagnosed, she asked the doctor how long she would live if she didn't go through the chemo, seeing as the first bout made her deathly ill. He responded, "Three weeks to a month." Is there any other choice but to try? What would she have done to still be with us for longer than a month?

My mom hated coffee and tea, she never drank any of it. For her nausea, I bought ginger lemon tea, and she drank it several times a day to avoid feeling sick. For nearly seven months. Even though she hated the smell, and she hated the taste even worse.

She loved her hair, and she was devastated during her breast cancer when she lost it. She was embarrassed and completely ashamed of how she looked, and she always wore a wig. This time around, when it started to fall out, she shaved her head. And she wore different colored ballcaps depending on the outfit she was wearing. She was not ashamed, and she was not embarrassed. And everywhere we went, she got compliments on her hat, and she loved it.

In order to begin killing the cancer cells, she had to have chemotherapy straight for nearly a week, every month. A total of five times. She had seven or eight different types of chemo, with one of them being the "red devil." If you are in any way familiar with cancer treatment, Adriomycin, the "red devil," is the worst of all chemos. It is bright, neon red, and it coursed through her veins for 24 hours continuously, three different times.

During my mom's third round of chemotherapy, her sister was laying in bed in the Hospice unit three floors down. She finished her last round of chemo at 4 o'clock in the morning. She watched her sister take her last breath, because of the same disease she herself was fighting, at 11:30 that morning.

Despite losing her dear sister, she never let it break her spirit. She remained positive and upbeat, and continued to fight for her life. She went on to have two more rounds of chemo, not even knowing if working towards remission would be worth it, since a bone marrow match cannot be found for nearly 70% of the population. She still tried, and she remained hopeful that they would find a match for her.

They did. They found three. One was a 100% perfect match. She was exhausted, fighting pneumonia, c-diff, and weakness from the previous five chemotherapy treatments. But she was excited.

She was also extremely nervous, for all of the things you hear about a bone marrow transplant and for all of the things that she would miss while she was in the hospital. The serious total-body radiation, the intense, continuous chemotherapy, the sickness, the infections, the mouth sores. She was so frightened. But instead of dwelling on that, she obliged showing up at a prayer vigil in her honor, despite her distaste for being the center of attention. While she was nervous to move on with having a transplant from a complete stranger, a 40-year-old male from somewhere in Europe, she joked about gaining a French accent, growing red, curly hair, or developing a taste for lager. She never lost her sense of humor or her great outlook on her future.

Every round of chemo called for a another bone marrow biopsy. The first four, completed at Aultman, included sedation and an experience that remained only a distant memory. "I couldn't feel a thing!" she'd say afterwards, and she'd immediately put it behind her. The fifth, done at Cleveland Clinic, left her completely awake and aware, knowing full well they were drilling a needle into the top of her hip bone, with no sedation, no pain medication. She cried, and made herself sick to her stomach, she was so upset to not have the same treatment she had at Aultman. But, she did it. And she put it behind her.

The night they transferred her to ICU, and her body had already begun to shut down, I walked into her room, after not having seen her in over a week. I was trying to protect her, because I had an infection similar to mono. I missed her dearly, and couldn't wait to see her face again. I never imaged it would be in a fit of hurry, rushing up to Cleveland after getting the news that she was septic. I looked at her cracked, bloody lips and her yellow, jaundiced eyes. Her head was bobbing on and off her pillow, and she finally caught my gaze. Despite having an infection racing through her veins and poisoning all of her organs, despite her mouth and throat being so sore she could barely speak, despite the liver-failure toxins attacking her entire body and her brain, she said, "I feel fine! I feel better than I have in days!" She tried to reassure me that she was OK, that she would come out of this. When her blood pressure started to drop and her heart rate started to rise, and she had a swarm of doctors and nurses around her, preparing the defibrillator and trying to avoid a Code Blue, the doctor asked her if she had any questions and if she was alright. She looked directly at him and said, "My daughter's here and she's really scared," through her oxygen mask and through her struggles to breathe. She was as strong as she could be, and she never thought of herself first, not even as her body began to shut down.

What would you do to live? To stay with your family? To hope for a future? Could you be this brave? The sad thing is, none of us know the answer to any of these questions. Although we think we know, we really have no idea until we are faced with the words: cancer, chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant, infections, ICU, life support.

But I watched my mom lay in ER, after she had been told she had leukemia. I watched her go through five rounds of chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant, nearly crashing twice, and still fighting with everything she had as she laid in ICU. I asked her, before they moved her, "Mom-do you want them to do anything they need to do to keep you healthy?" And she nodded her head and said "Yes," through her struggling breaths. She wanted anything and everything done, just to stay here with us, just to live.

She died with the bravery and dignity that even two weeks later, and probably until my dying day, fills my heart with such pride. She did all of that to live. She would have done anything, and she really did. She was my mom, and she was my hero.

The Formalities of Dying

It has been two weeks since my mom passed away. It is amazing how it still feels like it was just yesterday. But, yesterday marked the two-week moment, and I remembered her by getting a tattoo of her handwriting on my foot. It directly faces me, so I can see it all the time. I love it. It's beautiful, but a little haunting. It really is shocking how something can warm your heart and break it at the same time.

Today started out alright, but I all of the sudden had a set back, but I'm not sure what triggered it. My friend and I are up in Cleveland, and we took a four-mile walk around the neighborhood. I looked all of the trees, their leaves turning orange and red, and I felt warm inside, knowing how much my mom would have enjoyed the view. But it started to rain on the way home. So I took a warm shower, and I listened to relaxing music and lit some candles. And I still felt warm inside.

As I dried off, I looked in the mirror at my face. I have dark circles under my eyes, my skin looks gray. My eyes look so empty. So sad. And I just started to cry. Mostly for myself, but as soon as I start to feel this way, then I get sad for my mom. I'm so sorry that she had to go through all of that, just to lose her life. It almost feels like it was for nothing, so wasted. And then I think about the thing she kept saying to me when I would get upset that she was going through such an ordeal: "Well, I have to try. Or we'll have the same outcome." And then I feel proud of her, that she went through such a scary thing, because either way, the same thing would happen. Except, she didn't give up, and she was so brave to face all of that. Just to be with us. I am so happy that she tried. During the last hours of her life, she looked at me and said, "I'm trying. I'm really trying." I just held her hand and patted her head and said, "I know. You're doing such a good job. We're all so proud of you," as I tried to fight back tears. I didn't want her to know that she was dying, and I didn't want her to know that I knew she was dying, and most of all, I didn't want her to be scared. I hope she wasn't scared. I pray everyday that she wasn't scared.

I am still running every day. It gets easier all the time. I have my sights set on a half-marathon, which is 13.1 miles. There's a big one near my house, and it's next September. I can't help but think that while it will be exciting and a monumental accomplishment, it won't be as fulfilling without my mom waiting for me at the finish line. I missed her so much at my 5K, which is for breast cancer, and she worked at that event for the last 9 years. I was so proud of myself to run across the finish line, but my heart felt a huge pang knowing that she could have been there waiting for me, but she wasn't. And she won't be. Just like how she won't be at my graduation, or at my wedding, or when I bring a child into the world. And while I know that she will be "there," in spirit, she won't be there. It is not the same. It will never be the same.

It's weird how the first couple days after someone dies feels so surreal and so shocking. You feel like you're in a haze, and your brain keeps asking, "Did that really just happen?!" But it is even weirder how your body finally processes it after weeks of them actually being gone. Things really have sunk in now, and they seem very real, which is a lot more heartbreaking and a lot more challenging to deal with than actually watching them die. I wish I could pick up the phone, first thing in the morning, and tell her everything that is going on in my life, like I used to every day just two weeks ago.

I looked at some pictures of her today, and because they were so recent, that confusion and disbelief flooded my brain. How surreal. And while you are trying to deal with processing and understanding the new dynamics of your life, you have to face the "formalities of dying." Despite the fact of being completely distraught and fighting the urge to curl in a ball and cry for hours, you have to go to a funeral and stand in a line for what feels like days, greeting people and listening to them tell you how sorry they are for your loss. And then you have to write thank you notes to people who have sent flowers and cooked you food. And then you have to sit for hours to complete schoolwork that was due two weeks ago. And on top of all of that, you have to go back to real life, and see the look of pity in people's eyes as they see you for the first time after "the news." That whole "Did you hear the news?" business that goes through the entire school, through your entire workplace...and then the whole "You poor thing" act that goes on when you come back. Exhausting. Yet comforting.

I have such mixed emotions about all of this. While it is comforting to know how much people care about you and how much they love you, it is difficult to see the way they look at you and to notice how extra-nice they are to you, just because they feel bad for you. I wonder if this type of thing helps people recover, or if it somehow hinders them, because it reminds them of what happened two weeks ago and how their life will never be the same again. I am confused, obviously.

But, I will be stronger because of all of this, eventually. I hope it happens sometime soon.

Dear Mom...

Dear Mom,

Today, the weather is so amazingly beautiful you wouldn't even believe it's Fall, and it made me want to talk to you so much I almost started talking to myself today in the car. I thought this would be a more appropriate, less psychotic way of doing things. I miss you so much, sometimes I think my heart will just stop beating I want to see you so badly. But it doesn't. And I realize I am still here, and I must try to live my life the way you would want me to.

Yesterday I bought something I think you would really like. You know how you wanted me to get a "really good" pedometer so I can tell how far I'm running? I got one that sits in my shoe with a sensor that's attached to my iPod, which tells me how far I've gone, how fast, when I hit my goals, things like that. I'm sure you would think it's pretty neat, and I used it today for the first time. But I am having trouble breathing while I run, and I can't catch my breath after only about one mile, and I'm so disappointed by that. Someone told me they think I have exercise-induced asthma, so I went to Dr. M's today, and she gave me an inhaler to use before I run. It didn't feel like it helped at all, but I also had just eaten for the first time today right before running, so I'm sure that no matter what, I wouldn't have run well today anyway. But, I am really upset, because I want to run, and I want to be able to run far and run marathons and make you so proud of me, and what if I can't? I am trying not to think about that right now. But I can't help it.

Tomorrow night, I am getting another tattoo. I can picture you rolling your eyes as you read this, but it's in your honor and it won't be obnoxious or anything. I found a card you sent to me when I moved into my apartment at school, and it said, "Some parents can't wait until their kids go away to college..." and then on the inside it said, "...but I can't wait for you to come home!" And you signed it, nothing fancy, with your beautiful handwriting, Love you, Mom. One of the things I miss most about you, actually, is your handwriting. It was so perfect. And so you. So I'm getting the Love you, Mom part copied and put on the top of my foot so I can see it all the time. I think it's appropriate, and I'm so excited to have a part of you with me all the time.

Another thing I know that you wouldn't be too thrilled about is that I turned in my two-weeks notice today at work. I'm sure that you would be supportive of this decision, since you were the one I called when I had such a hard time at work after aunt Polly died. And she wasn't even in anything scary, just the Hospice floor, where it was quiet and somber. No alarms, no ICUs, no Code Blues, no crash carts, no struggling to breathe, no screaming for help, not like you. So I am sure, knowing what we went through with you, that you would understand why I can't return to work, since these are the areas that I am in all day long. I used to love it. My stomach actually churns now just thinking about walking back in. I want nothing to do with it. That job that we talked about in the Wellness Department hasn't been posted, and I know that you would have preferred that I know I had that job before I quit mine, but I just couldn't go back. But I will still try for the Wellness job, since I love it so much and would do well in a different, and less traumatic environment. I hope you understand. I'm sure you do.

I can't tell you in words how sad I am to be here without you. This weekend is the weekend my friend Kelly is coming from Columbus to play with me and Sara in Cleveland. I know you were so excited to meet her, and I know you were looking forward to us having a shopping spree for you and bringing the clothes we picked out for you to Hope Lodge to have a fashion show. You were really looking forward to this weekend, and so was I, and I think the girls were too. The three of us are still getting together this weekend, but instead we will be taking piles of donations to Hope Lodge. I would give anything to be carrying in bags of jeans and sweaters and shirts to you instead of bags of napkins, paper towels, and toilet paper to all of the families who were luckier than we were. I would give anything.

Sometimes I really wonder why you are not here with me now. I try to understand, to make sense of why this happened to us. Especially after it just happened with aunt Polly. Aunt Janny and I talked about it, and she said that maybe aunt Polly was sad because she was taken away from all of her sisters and that she chose you to come stay with her. I am trying to understand this and to not be mad about it. I know you two had a bond from both having breast cancer, and maybe she just really needed you. Or maybe God knew long before that you would not make it through the transplant, so He put aunt Polly there first to bring you in safely. I do not know. All I know is that my heart aches for you to be near me, but I have to remember that you are safe and with your sister, and I am trying so hard to be happy for you both. I think about you together all the time and how much fun you must be having. I hope you are adjusting well. I worry about you all the time, and hope that you like it in Heaven, even though we are all still down here on Earth. I hope that whatever anger or hurt or fear you had while you were dying and there shortly after disappeared and that you are now content and free, although I am sure it is a huge adjustment being gone. Hang in there. You were so brave and strong, you can keep it up until it all gets a little easier up there, which it will, I'm sure. I'll see you again someday, but for now, have fun, enjoy aunt Polly's company, since you missed her so much, and keep watch over me until I am with you in Heaven. I love you. I miss you.

Pick Yourself Up and Dust Yourself Off

I am not having a "good day" today. Meaning, I had a massive panic attack last night that was so intense I actually thought I might be having a heart attack. The same thing happened as last time, only it was scarier. I was up alot later than I wanted to be, and then I had my very first dream about my mom, finally, which triggered another panic attack this morning. I suppose this is only natural, but they are so intense that I feel as though I am in shock afterwards. I am now on Ativan. How disappointing for me.

I am a health nut, a tree-hugger, a hippie, whatever the term may be...I take good care of myself, mentally, physically, emotionally. I am in control of my own body, no one else, and I do not let anything take that away. I do not wallow in sorrow, I do not lay in bed for days with the lights off, I do not contemplate hurting myself or others, I do none of these things and instead focus on positive thing for my body like eating healthy, running, yoga, stretching, sitting quietly and thinking, helping others, writing, visiting my friends, and I am not necessarily talking about when mom was sick. I have always felt this way, regardless of what was happening in my life. I respect myself and know that my body is the only one I'll ever have, and I know the pleasure in taking care of myself. So, I went from naturally handling my feelings and emotions and my life...to taking Xanex...to taking two Xanex...to taking Ativan. Awesome.

Regardless of what happened last night and this morning, I got up, stretched for a long time, thought about my mom, and put on some running clothes. And I went running. Outside. In the sunshine. In the Fall weather. By myself. I listened to Mika. I smiled and waved to people I passed, and they all smiled back. And I felt good. It is amazing how one person can go from feeling completely lost and distraught and desperate to feeling solid and in control and OK. It literally is exhausting. But, I think about feeling consistently miserable, consistently sad, and I am happy that I have a roller coaster for a life instead of a never-ending highway that stretches as far as the eye can see. Thank God for roller coasters. I'll take a roller coaster any day of the week.

It is so funny to me now how the littlest things catch my attention, and how I can twist them into helping myself feel better. Things people would never consider, and maybe this is a sign that I am that desperate to not feel like this anymore, but I guess we all have to do what works for us. Sunday night, the night before my mom's service, I went over to my aunt Janny's house to print out some pictures of my mom for a picture board people could look at while they waited in line. Aunt Rita was having people over to her house for dinner, and I do not know if your family does things like this, but for nearly any and all occasions, we get together and eat. All night long. So aunt Janny and I took a break from pictures to visit with the rest of the family. We stayed for a little over an hour and talked and laughed, but we needed to head back to her house to finish our job. We were about two minutes down the street, and she started to hysterically laugh. I looked over at her, and she said "Julia Christin...I don't have any shoes on!" nearly yelling she was laughing so hard. And she giggled and giggled, and then I giggled too. She walked out of aunt Rita's house, through the cold garage, onto the cold concrete of the driveway, touched her socked-feet to the gas pedal, and never realized she didn't have her shoes on. Thank God she realized before we got all the way to her house...

But this is what death and mourning and shock do to your brain. Completely numb, completely unaware. I can barely remember what I ate for lunch today. Aunt Janny forgets to put on her shoes.

Today, after running, I met aunt Janny for lunch, and by the way, I have moved on from carbs and chocolate and now have re-introduced salads back into my life. Anyway, we sat for a couple of hours and talked and joked, and we talked about "mush brain," which is what we have called our current condition. And she said, "Well, at least I have my shoes on today..."

Whatever it takes to pick yourself up and dust yourself off...Ativan, running, writing, putting your shoes on. They are all a step in the right direction.

Traumatized Much?

So yesterday really, in hindsight, was a great day. Yesterday and the day before I made it completely through without needing Xanex, and I actually was productive and had some fun with my friends. However, last night was a whole different story. I have had panic attacks before, when mom was first diagnosed, but they have been pretty basic, you're typical hyperventilating and freaking out episode. But I'm not so sure if this was a panic attack or not, it was so different, and so real, and so frightening.

Nowadays, I sleep with my lamp and my TV on, which to me, is more comforting than dark and silence in my room. But last night, I turned my lamp off and turned my TV volume down to 9 so I could barely even hear it. All of the sudden, I was in my mom's ICU room, and she was screaming my name and yelling "Help me!" and I had to stand behind the glass and let the nurses and doctors work on her, and she looked directly at me and yelled my name. And she was so scared. And then it switched to me standing by her bed, holding her hands down so she wouldn't try to take off her breathing mask, telling her it was going to be OK and she needed to let the mask help her. She would look directly at me and say "No. It won't. Help me. Please help me" This is not any type of dream but unfortunately actual events from the last 48 hours of her life. All while I was laying in bed.

I would never do anything to harm myself, but I now understand why people harm themselves. I wanted the pictures to stop and they were so real, like I was back in that room with her, that I actually wanted to find a hammer to make the pictures go away. Again, I would never do that to myself, but I felt seriously and strongly enough about wanting things to stop that I almost woke my dad up to take me to the hospital. I grabbed both sides of my head with my hands and closed my eyes as hard as I could, but they wouldn't stop. I reached for my Xanex, took two, and waited, frantically, for the pictures to stop so I could go to sleep. I literally was in agony and so panicked from this, I had no idea what to do for myself. I don't remember falling asleep. I woke up this morning to my cell phone ringing, my friend calling me to go running. We ran a 12:30 minute mile. And it was like it had never even happened last night.

Today, when I was separating my mountain (no exaggeration) of laundry, I came across the outfit I was wearing the day she died. Nothing. No panic, no flashbacks, no depression. Just a simple fact. As I picked up my sweatshirt and pulled out my t-shirt from inside it, all I thought was, "I was wearing this when she died." That's it. I tossed it into the "brown" pile and moved on. And then it struck me--why didn't that trigger anything? Absolutely nothing happened last night to make me flashback to her room.

I am now afraid I will be like one of those Vietnam vets that hides under his dining room table because he thinks he is being shot at, when really, a car backfired driving down his street. Fantastic. I am sure that every psychologist and every psychiatric nurse that reads this now believes I am in desperate need of an intervention. I actually don't think so, though. I am sure that after such a devastating and excruciating thing to live through, memories and flashbacks are a given, and this was only my first one. That is why I was given Xanex, ladies and gentlemen. However, if that happens even one more time, I will most definitely be making a phone call to my doctor. I will never let myself get out of control.

I wonder if maybe flashbacks and memories like that actually need to happen, so I can put them to rest, bury them, and move on to bigger and better things like the way she used to sit on the edge of her bed to bend over and tie her shoes, or the way she used to open her mouth really wide when she put on eyeliner. Or even better, the way she used to dance in her seat when we would listen to offensive rap music in her car, but then she would gasp and say "JULIA!" when she could actually understand some of the words. I'd rather remember things like that, so maybe before I can have it easy, I have to have it a little rough. I'll take it, all to remember her the way I want to remember her. She was hilarious. And beautiful. And I miss her.

The Reality of Mourning

I know I've already posted something today but with the situation as it is, I feel more compelled to write...and just keep writing. So I am.

I have realized the disturbing characteristics of mourning. Not the kind where a distant relative or neighbor dies and you are slightly sad and may feel a pang in your heart here and there for the next few days. The kind of mourning that rocks you to the core, shakes your soul, and scrambles your brain. The kind that occurs after you watch your lovely soul-of-a-mother slip through your fingers after begging God for nearly 48 hours not to take her away. But he does anyway, and the reason why is completely misunderstood and incomprehensible.

Today (Friday), is the first day I have showered since Monday. I eat about one meal per day, most of which consist of some type of carbohydrate. I haven't seen a fruit or a vegetable in days. I have gone in and out of complete normalcy to staring at the wall, nearly drooling. I cry at almost anything, whether that be a memory, a song, a picture, a movie, someone saying something nice to me, or the frustration of feeling so miserable. I have a constant headache that matches my constant nausea and body aches, and I am positive it is not the flu. I do not take care of myself hardly at all compared to what I did previously to my mom's death. A girl once so set on painting, running, yoga, laughing, eating healthy, working, spending time with friends, now reduced to sleeping nearly 15 hours a day, bags under her eyes, no care to put on makeup or do her hair, no energy or desire to even get up and shower. The things depression will do to you...

However, depression isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's all a matter of balance and timing. Laying in bed, in the dark, for several hours a day isn't all that terrible when it's warranted. Mother dies? Yeah, sure. Bad day at the office? Probably not. It has been 8 days. I think that I am starting to turn the corner of deep depression and mourning to gaining my life back. Although I am amazingly saddened by the loss of my mom, she would not want this for me and would encourage me to try to regain "Julia."

I have started running again. This is the third day in a row, and I am gaining length every day. I haven't started to paint again, my heart doesn't feel the desire yet. But I did go to the grocery store today and buy vegetables and dip, and I sat at my favorite coffee house and did about 3 hours worth of homework. I ate twice today, and I started to take my vitamins again. My friend and I actually laughed, long and hard today, about something ridiculous that happened while we were running. Laughing. I didn't think I even had it in me anymore. But I do. Things are starting to come around.

I think it's important to recognize that mourning, real, raw mourning is not as it is portrayed in the movies. It is not sadly romantic or hauntingly beautiful or intriguing in any way. It is ugly and desperate and frightening. It feels as though the life is sucked out of you, like you would die right alongside that person. Like there is nothing left in you. Nothing. You are empty. And it is frightening. But somewhere along the lines comes this feeling, the small, tiny feeling in your gut: You might actually be OK. You will be OK. Sometimes, you have to make yourself OK.

So I have started to make myself OK. And while it is somewhat forced, and oftentimes fake, it will help bring along the real "OK." I am confident that I will be OK. With the help of my friends and my family, and most importantly my mom, and with myself as an honorable mention, I will be OK again.

Thank you for being a friend

Last night was one of the first nights I slept in my own house again. I am not overly upset to be here but it does feel very strange, because even though mom hadn't been here since September 14th, and I was here by myself for the majority of that time, I at least had the image of being able to bring her home. I pictured Dad and I on either side of her, holding her steady and walking her up our front stairs into the front door. We would walk her to the living room and sit her down on the couch, and we would stand there and watch her breathe a long, deep sigh of relief. I used to picture that all the time, when I'd be sad about being alone in this house. I'd picture her face, so content and so happy and filled with joy to simply be home with her family, what she always wanted.

During the last 48 hours of her life, starting with her blood pressure dropping in her room and the decision to move her to ICU, she cried alot, and asked us to take her home. "I just want to go home," she'd say, over and over again, and the corners of her mouth would turn down and she'd sob a few times. She wanted to be home so badly, just for things to be normal again. I don't know if she knew what was happening to her. I really hope she didn't. I would give anything to know that she was unaware of the danger that began that night. She was so scared of all of those people around her and all of the chaos, and she kept asking where I was. I was sitting in the corner of the room, rocking slightly in my seat, back and forth, back and forth, asking God not to do this to us. I'd get up and grab her hand and say, "I'm right here mom," and her eyes would finally catch mine and she'd smile. I wish I could really describe her smile. I know I tried in a previous post but I don't think it will ever really translate the way I'd like it to, to make it completely understood. All I can say over and over about it is that it was so sweet. She'd breathe an airy and angelic "Hi," every time she saw me. She was just so sweet.

This morning I woke up again in complete disbelief. Did that really happen? Are you sure you really saw that? All of that? I still do not understand, my brain doesn't grasp it yet. She's gone. She's really gone.

I got out pictures of her and shuffled through them. I love to look at her, her beautiful, smiling face and her bright eyes. She was truly in her element, at her happiest, when she was with her family, and it is so evident to see in these pictures. They make me so happy. I will always cherish them, forever.

Last night, to have noise in my room, I turned on the Golden Girls. If you know me even just a little, you know my undying love for the Golden Girls and that I've seen nearly every episode. (Try not to be too jealous...) They have become somewhat of a comfort to me lately, since they play almost all night long and again in the morning. I do not like my room to be quiet, especially now. I don't pay attention to the episodes, but I turn down the volume until I can barely hear it, and then I just lay there and wait to fall asleep. Although I took a Xanex, I had a very restless night of sleep, and I remember tossing and turning over and over again. But I can't remember what I dreamed about. Maybe I never got to sleep fully enough to dream. I woke up this morning again to the Golden Girls. I just re-read this paragraph and realized how pathetic it is. Anyway, an episode of the Golden Girls came on that I'd never seen before, and I remembered my mom in the hospital, before she went up to Cleveland Clinic. She was having a round of chemo, in the hospital near our house, and she was awake most nights, and she too watched the Golden Girls all night long. I was sitting on the foot of her bed, like I did so often with her, and she said, "Guess what?" I thought she was going to tell me something really great about what the doctor said or how wonderful she felt that day, despite the chemo..."I saw an episode of the Golden Girls last night I've never seen before!" I just laughed at her and shook my head, and she started to giggle, that cute little giggle that just warmed my heart. "Awesome, mom." She just smiled, almost like she was proud. "Yep!"

My gift in return

Today marks a week since my mom passed away. I can't say "died" yet. It sounds too weird, like I don't care enough to be gentle and sugar coat it..."passed away" sounds sugary sweet and easy on the ears and brain.

The last two days have been the roughest so far. Things are settling in, and they are starting to hurt. In fact, my whole body hurts, and I feel sick to my stomach almost constantly. When it first happens, when you see a life taken, you feel so numb and so in shock that it almost doesn't feel real. It scared me that it didn't feel real, and I kept saying to myself, "Julia, she's gone. Your mom is gone. You have to understand this." I just said it over and over, so my brain could make some sense of what was happening in my life. I think it worked, because it certainly feels real now.

This morning, my body and my heart hurt alot, the most they have thus far. I'm just so sad, for my family and my dad and my aunts and myself. And I'm still sad for her. I wish I had some type of sign or signal to know that she was OK, with my aunt Polly, and comfortable with being in Heaven, away from all of us. I, of course, do not know what it feels like to die or what it feels like to be pulled away from your entire family, and I cannot even fathom the details of all of it. Is she scared? Is she upset? Can you even feel things like that in Heaven? I know she doesn't have cancer anymore, and I know she isn't in pain anymore. But is she happy to be in Heaven? Can she even feel anything? Emotions, I mean. Maybe when you go to Heaven you can't feel sad or lost, you just feel pleasant and contentment, to make the transition either. I don't know. I wish I did. I worry about her all the time up there. Which is only natural, I suppose, since I worried about her all the time down here too.

I have been staying in Cleveland for the last several days, since I have not wanted to be in my house because it does not feel right to be here now. When I got home, there was a stack of cards for me, and I opened them today as I sat on the bathroom floor and cried. I cry every day. Alot. I hope this starts to get easier soon.

I got cards from people I didn't even know but knew my mom, either from school or work or places like that. One of them was from a lady that worked with my mom that wanted to tell me how special my mom was to her because she was so encouraging and loving towards her when she decided to go back to school. I nodded as I read it, knowing full well how encouraging she would have been towards this woman, because my mom was so supportive of people and so kind and loving, always ready to help or give advice. At the funeral, friends of hers, a couple who had lost their own daughter several years ago to ovarian cancer, told me how much my mom meant to them and how she helped get them through such a devastating time. I remember her talking about this girl all the time, how sad she was for her and her family, because I am sure she tried to put herself in their position, losing a precious daughter. I know her heart ached for them. Even mine did, just from hearing my mom talk about them. The girl's father, the man my mom worked with, said to me that he wanted to write me a letter to tell me how much my mom meant to him, because I just really wouldn't understand otherwise. I did actually get a letter in the mail, but not yet from him. It was from my mom's friend who had breast cancer and had to have a stem cell transplant, and they were old neighborhood friends together. She wrote about how she was thankful I included her in my Facebook updates and how much I meant to my mom and how much my mom meant to her as a friend.

My mom never went to college, she never won any type of award or prize for a huge accomplishment, she never was recognized in any way for doing anything extraordinary. She wasn't that type of person. She was quiet and private but caring and good to the people in her life, regardless of how she knew them, how often she saw them, and how close they were to her. All of them were special and important to her, all of them meant a great deal to her. She was a genuinely good person, with a good heart. So many people talk about how nice and caring she was, how giving and genuine she was. And she really was. I am sorry if you didn't know her. She was amazing. I have watched her as I have grown up, seeing the way she smiles and greets people, her politeness and desire to help others, all of these amazing and beautiful things that she possessed in her that so often, and unfortunately, lack in so many these days. A truly wonderful person like her doesn't come along very often. And now she's gone, to be with others like her in Heaven. I have been taught well by her. I remember being really young on vacation and wanting to play with other kids at the swimming pool but I was afraid to talk to them. She said, "Just go say, 'Hi! I'm Julia! What's your name?' And then ask them if they want to play." And I did, and I had new friends. This goes back as far as I can remember. Always helping me, encouraging me, making sure I smiled and greeted people by their names, making sure I helped people feel special too, because this was so important to her. And it became important to me. I am so lucky to have had these special life lessons, and although they are so simple, they mean so much and are so rare to find, it seems.

I will always remember this, and I will always continue this. No matter what. I will be that kind-hearted, genuine, caring, warm person she was. I will do my best to make people feel special and appreciated, and I will always do my best to find good in others, like she always did. Although the fact that she is gone has literally torn my heart out (and smashed it into a thousand pieces all over the floor, leaving it scattered and lost...), I will do everything in my power to keep her proud of me and to help my heart grow back so I can treat people and be the amazingly wonderful woman she was. While now it feels like my heart will never be the same, and it probably won't be, it will at least be taped back together by her, eventually, and it will be infused with her love and courage and kindness so that I can continue what she maintained for so long.

This will be my gift to her, one that goes on forever, until I am with her again. I am so sad that I lost her so early in my life and that I will have to wait so long to see her beautiful, smiling face. This is how I will always remember her. I promise that I will continue with my running, which she was so proud of me for that I found something to do while she was sick. I will go to school, and finish my degree and my thesis and I will work in Wellness to continue my dream of reaching out to people who want to be better for themselves. I will continue to be just like her, to encourage and fill them with self-respect and self-love so they know they can do whatever they want. I may not go back to Physician Assistant school like I planned, which I will for sure hear about probably within seconds of seeing her again, but I hope that she will understand my hesitation to enter back into the medical and clinical community, when I was so destroyed by it just a week ago. But she will understand, and she will be happy for me that I will still continue my career to help others, which is what I have always wanted. And what she always lived for. She has done so much for me, and this, in return, is what I will do for her.

My gift from her

People probably think that night time is always the hardest after you've lost someone, because it's quiet and dark and your mind can wonder and bring back memories that are difficult to relive. They may sit in the dark and watch reruns of the Golden Girls all night long and need Xanex to help them sleep, wishing that it would kick in soon so they don't have to listen to Blanche's sexual innuendos and Rose's Saint Olaf stories night after night. Oh maybe that's just me.

But the nights are not the hardest for me. The mornings are. Even before my mom was ever sick, before this nightmare ever started, I called my mom first thing in the morning. Speed dial 6, directly to her work line. She'd pick up the phone, hold the receiver away from her mouth while she talked to someone in her office, like an understood, "Hang on a sec, I'm talking to one of the guys." I would wait, listen to her muffled voice, and I could hear her favorite radio station in the background and I would usually hear a song I recognized, because we both listened to the oldies. "Good morning, Beeping Slooty," she'd say in such a cheery, beautiful voice. I'd sing to her whatever song was playing on the radio in my raspy I-just-woke-up voice. "I will never understand how you know all of these songs." She always thought it was so funny that I knew all the words to all the songs on our favorite Oldies station, since I was in my twenties and should have been listening to rap or hip hop or pop or something like that. But I liked Oldies the best, mostly because aunt Polly and I listened to the Beatles and Rolling Stones and the Guess Who and the Turtles from the time I can remember while we drove around in her car. And that's all we listened to in mom's car. We talked about how I was born in the wrong era.

I wonder sometimes if I really was born in the wrong era. I love hearing stories of my mom and her sisters in high school, wishing so badly I could go back in time to be there with them. I loved their cat-eye glasses and stacked, teased, curled, and sprayed hairstyles. I love Elvis and the Beatles and saddle shoes and record players. I often wonder if I was meant to be their friend from school, rather than their daughter and niece. The way we all got along so perfectly, despite the age differences and generation gaps. Especially my mom and I, the way we got along with each other and were able to communicate without even really talking so others couldn't understand, if we saw something funny or something we couldn't talk about at that very moment. It really does make me wonder, maybe I was born during the wrong time, meant to be her best friend from high school rather than her daughter.

Don't get me wrong--I loved being her daughter more than anything in the whole world, it was my favorite job. But, I mean that the way we connected and liked the same things and giggled at things we saw without even having to talk about them was always something that almost shocked me, in a way. Do other people get along like this, I would wonder to myself. I was always so sad for people that never knew their mothers the way I knew mine. We loved driving on chilly Fall days to Amish Country, and we would talk to the horses as we drove by all the farms. The radio would be turned to the Oldies, and we would hum together, sometimes actually singing out loud. My mom was sometimes off key, and it would bother me some, and I would turn the music up higher and she would hum louder. I could never escape it, and it was the most precious and innocent thing in the world, her just humming the way she wanted to, trying not to be perfect and just enjoying herself. And I literally thought to myself, "Enjoy this, don't be annoyed by it because one day you will not have it." I never thought, never in a million years, did I believe that that time would come so soon. How I would give anything to hear her hum next to me in the car, driving to Amish country. I would turn the music up, just so I could hear her hum louder. And I would smile, and turn to face her, and just relish in the simple fact of how much I really loved her and all the ways she did things. Like hum off key to oldies music.

I loved her and her little ways of doing things more than anything else in the whole world. Just absolutely everything she did. I have always been so observant, and I have always noticed little things that people did. There are a million things, and with the haze I've been walking in, it's almost hard to think of any examples right now. But if you knew her, you know how articulate and meticulous she was with everything.

Really, the only picture I have in my head is the one that kept recurring during the last 24 hours of her life. I hadn't seen her in over a week because I was sick. I missed her voice and her face and her touch so much, and even though I was rushing to the hospital because I knew something was wrong, I was so excited at even the thought of being near her again. I remember looking at her for the first time, and how my heart immediately dropped to the pit of my stomach. After I cried for her, for her bloodshot, jaundiced eyes, her cracked, bloody lips, and her swollen hands and arms, I asked her if she was in any pain. "I feel better than I have in days," and she smiled the sweetest smile you have ever seen in your entire life. How she smiled like that, I have no idea, but I'm sure it was something to do with the fact that she probably was as happy to see me as I was to see her. I just put my hands over her shoulders as best I could with her sitting in her hospital bed and put my face so close to hers and told her how much I loved her, that she was so important to me and I was so sorry that she was so sick and hurt so much. She reassured me again that she didn't hurt anywhere. I knew then that she was dying. It is terrible to know as much as you know when you work in the medical field, and because I knew at that time what was wrong with her, I knew this was one of the last times I would be talking to her again.

The course of events that took place after that I cannot discuss now, since it is still so fresh, and it was so gruesome, and these images are what haunt me and keep me afraid to be fully conscious. I may be able to discuss them later, may actually need to discuss them later, but for right now, I will remember her smile. Even with 8 doctors around her, people poking her arms and fingers and through her tears of pain, every time she was able to recognize my face, she'd smile a smile that lit up her entire face, her eyes, her mouth, her cheeks, all stretched into a sweet smile, and she'd tilt her head to the side and say "hi" in a tiny voice, every single time. I am so sad for her today, this morning. So sad she knew what was going on and so sad she had to go through that and so sad that she was so scared and there was nothing I could do for her. I am so sad for her, to be taken away from us so quickly and so abruptly, so sad that she struggled to maintain awareness from being so sick, because she wanted so badly just to be with us. All she wanted was to be with us. The night she was diagnosed, she sat on the edge of her hospital bed, next to me, with her feet hanging off the side and her head hung, and she said, "All I ever wanted was to grow old with you guys." And she didn't get to. And I'm so sad for her. And so angry.

If you were lucky enough to know her, you know that all she ever wanted were little things, never anything extravagant or flashy. Except maybe the time she wanted a thunderbird convertible. But other than that, she just wanted a clean, nice, safe house, a job, her family, and she just wanted to be able to give them things. So when she said that all she wanted was to grow old with us, she deeply and truly meant it. And I will never understand why she was not allowed to do that. I will never understand why she couldn't have enjoyed her time with us, more trips to Amish country and Disney World and to Texas to visit aunt Kathy and more holidays and birthdays with her sisters. I will never understand why she was not allowed to stay with me, to see me graduate, to help pick out my wedding dress, to see me bring home a child. I will never understand.

But what I do understand is that for the time she was here and with us, she enjoyed every second of it. Enjoyed every sight and smell and memory, and she really cherished them, and I believe that is what kept her fighting for as long and as hard as she did.

I am so happy to have had her in my life, to teach me to appreciate the little things and to savor them and keep them safe in my memory. I am so much like her it is frightening sometimes, and I am so thankful to have been raised by her, with such grace and such humility and such compassion for others. And that will always be mine, my gift from her and no one else.