This posting took me a while because I have been fighting it.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t wanted to write it but it won\u2019t leave me alone.\u00a0 I guess it just has to be written.<\/p>\n
Life isn\u2019t fair.\u00a0 Cancer isn\u2019t fair.\u00a0 Murder isn\u2019t fair.\u00a0 The last 34 years of my Mom\u2019s life wasn\u2019t fair.\u00a0 I know that sounds like a pity party but sometimes you just have to go there.\u00a0 You have to just feel the unfairness and the injustice like an emotion.\u00a0\u00a0 The acknowledgment and acceptance of this reality can help to move you forward as long as you don\u2019t stay in the pity party.\u00a0 Acknowledge and move on \u2013 that\u2019s the hard part.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know much about the first 34 years of my Mom\u2019s life.\u00a0 I know different jobs that she did and a few places that she lived and that she had early aspirations to be a teacher.\u00a0 I also know that she really wanted to get married and have children.\u00a0 Her dreams came true when she met my Dad at about 30.\u00a0 And then it was taken away by murder.\u00a0 I honestly don\u2019t have the words for the injustice that she suffered that day and in the days that followed.\u00a0 I\u2019m overwhelmed by it all.\u00a0 I know that she really didn\u2019t understand why.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t hear her come out and say, \u201cWhy me?\u201d Or, \u201cThis isn\u2019t fair.\u201d\u00a0 Or pout.\u00a0 But I know she thought it.\u00a0 It\u2019s natural.\u00a0 How do you not feel cheated when you feel like you have entered the perfect life only to have it ripped from you after only 3 years?\u00a0 When you are suddenly raising 2 children in a situation you never could have imagined?<\/p>\n
Mom made a life for us and her but I don\u2019t think that anyone will deny that she lived in the shadow of her dream.\u00a0 She fought it every day.\u00a0 She forced herself out of bed and made breakfast plans at a restaurant nearly every day to be sure that she kept to a routine.\u00a0 She did her best to keep herself distracted by reading the paper, watching tv, going out for coffee with friends.\u00a0 She just couldn\u2019t bear to think about what might have been or what was.\u00a0 This was pretty well hidden to most behind humor or small talk.\u00a0 She also relied on her faith to keep her going.\u00a0 I have found many writings of hers trying to make sense of her life.<\/p>\n
According to what we are now discovering it\u2019s quite amazing that it took over 30 years for the cancer to come.\u00a0 Research is beginning to connect trauma with cancer, as well as many auto-immune diseases.\u00a0 It is believed that extreme physical or mental trauma causes such a shock to the body that it lowers the immune system enough for cancer or other diseases to take hold. \u00a0For my Mom she also had an extreme chemical and hormonal imbalance at the time of my Dad\u2019s death which made everything so much worse.\u00a0 When you have already survived a trauma the prospect of cancer just adds insult to injury.<\/p>\n
So as I watched my Mother suffer for 18 months the unfairness of the situation was ever present for me.\u00a0 It was what kept me going back when I thought I had given everything I had to give.\u00a0 It was what gave me the strength to confront doctors and nurses.\u00a0\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t change the fact that she was suffering and dying but I could do my best to lessen her suffering and help her die with dignity.\u00a0 I know that God always has a plan and a path for each of us.\u00a0 And I know that it isn\u2019t always for us to understand that plan; but speaking as a daughter who watched her Mom suffer most of my life I just wish that for her sake she could have gone quickly with a heart attack or a car accident. \u00a0I hate that she had to suffer for us to have that time with her.\u00a0 It feels incredibly selfish.\u00a0 Watching my Mother slowly starve to death over the course of 6 weeks knowing that there was nothing I could do but sit, watch and listen will never leave me.\u00a0 Intellectually I know that it is an experience that I need for whatever is ahead of me in life.\u00a0 No experience goes to waste.\u00a0 But this one I think I would have preferred to go without.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just not fair.\u00a0 I guess this is where I\u2019m supposed to move on\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This posting took me a while because I have been fighting it.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t wanted to write it but it won\u2019t leave me alone.\u00a0 I guess it just has to be written. Life isn\u2019t fair.\u00a0 Cancer isn\u2019t fair.\u00a0 Murder isn\u2019t … Continue reading