My Mom didn’t die in an accident, of a heart attack, or a stroke the day that she was diagnosed with cancer.  She wasn’t taken from us suddenly.  I realized this shortly after she was admitted to the hospital the first time.  Now this may seem pretty simple.  But it changed everything.

I knew we were all in a battle; with Mom at the centre.  Not only was she battling for her life, we were battling for her and sometimes against her.  And there were times where it would have been much easier and preferable to walk away.  Walk away and say that we weren’t that close anyway.  Why should I stick around?  Or do the bare minimum, or less.  I had to decide early on and at times it was a daily decision to stay and fight.  So many times I had to take deep breaths and talk myself into going into the hospital or to my Mom’s apartment.  I was so tired of the battle.  Some days I just wanted to retreat to my home with my husband and children and hide under the covers until it was all over.  Other days I wanted to run; get on a plane, or just keep driving on the many days and nights that I was going to or from one place or another.

But, one of the major things that kept me going was that she hadn’t died in an accident.  My Mom was still here.  I knew that she was going to die from cancer from the day she was diagnosed.  But she hadn’t yet.  She still had a chance to die with peace.  She was still able to make amends where necessary.  She and I still had a chance.  My children still had their Grandma to make memories with and to learn from.  I didn’t take this lightly.  What my Mom and the rest of the family would have given to have time with my Dad; time to say goodbye, time to share memories and make new ones for those left behind.  I also have friends who have not been so blessed.  Their mothers passed suddenly without the opportunity that I was being given.  If I were to squander or ignore this opportunity I felt that I would be disrespecting what they had gone through; to throw away something so precious that they would have been so thankful for.

So I knew that I was in the battle whether I wanted to be or not and I was going to make the best of it.  I stepped up with doctors, nurses and other professionals when needed not because I wanted to be a hero but because it just needed to be done.  My Mom didn’t fully understand what was happening to her and so didn’t always understand or want to know what the doctors were talking about.  I also knew that she had always struggled with feeling like she had the right to speak up or make a nuisance of herself.  And so I knew that if we didn’t speak for her, she most likely wouldn’t.  I wanted to be sure that she wasn’t letting too much go because she didn’t want to make a fuss.  A great example of this is in her last days one of her last words was “sorry” when we would move her and she would show pain.  She felt guilty for feeling pain.  I also wanted to be sure that the doctors knew that she had advocates on her side.  There were also times where her choosing to not understand her condition became a danger to her.  We had to keep on top of every possibility to be sure that we were ahead of as many disasters as possible.

But her illness wasn’t all battles.   That was the beautiful part and I was determined to see the beauty in the battle.  If I had run away trying to avoid the pain I would have missed out on so much more.  My children would have missed out.  My Mom would have missed out.  Instead I determined to make the most of every minute we had left.  As painful as some of the memories are now I would rather have them mixed with the good ones rather than to be left with only regrets.