Day 28: Disappointment and Anger

Judge me if you will for today's post. But this is my blog. I started it as a way to express my own feelings. And today, they're ugly. Period.

I was supposed to go up and see mom today. I called just before the boys and I were getting ready to hop in the car only to be told there was really no reason to come up today if I was coming up on Monday anyway. Mom wasn't feeling well again and just didn't think it was a good day to have visitors.

And I got off the phone incredibly disappointed and sad. As the day has gone on, it's actually turned into anger. I am SO angry. I'm angry at God. I'm angry at the universe. I'm angry at myself. And in all honesty, I think a part of me is angry at my mom. I know that's unfair and irrational, but it's how I feel.

I know she didn't choose to get cancer. I understand that. That's the part I'm angry at God about. But mom is choosing to stop chemo which means her time left on this earth is very limited and I feel that I, and pretty much everyone else, is being forced to stay away. And I don't feel like it's fair. I just want as much of the little time I have left with my mom. I don't care what she looks like. I don't care if she has to take a nap. I don't care. I just want to be there. I feel so helpless here. At least up at mom and dads I feel like we can talk. I can understand more of what mom is going through. I know I can't do anything to take this away. But I just simply want to be there. And it hurts that I'm not allowed to. And a part of me just wants to go anyway, and the other part of me knows I need to respect her wishes. But I am SO mad today.

And maybe a lot of it is directed at myself. Why didn't I visit more before? Why am I trying to jam a lifetime of visits into a short period of time before mom dies? That's my fault. I only have myself to blame for that. But mom and I have always had our "stuff" and sometimes I just didn't want to deal with it. The last 3 1/2 years have been incredibly tough in my life and I've pulled away from everyone. Crap...as I type that I realize it's the same thing mom is doing. She's pulling away because how do you process all of this? What I was processing and experiencing wasn't life or death and I needed to do it on my own. Mom is looking death in the eyes and somehow I expect her to do that surrounded by people.

But...what I learned throughout the last 3 1/2 years is that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. And people do truly want to help. I've always been the one to help. I have never been one to accept help. Gee...I wonder where I got that from? But I could not have survived the last 3 1/2 years without the help of my friends. That's all any of us want to do for mom. We want to help. And we want to see her and maybe laugh and reminisce a little. And we want to say our good-byes.

But mom is pushing us away and that makes me mad. Maybe I'm just frustrated with the fact that I do understand where she is coming from, but I also know what I feel and I want her to understand that too. But, of course, I've never actually said it that way. Maybe I need to so she can understand that although she is suffering, all of those that love her are suffering too. Today I got to thinking that maybe she doesn't understand how important she is to so many people. Maybe she needs to hear that.

~ Sigh ~ So, it's taken me a long time to get this far in this blog post because I've stopped to wipe tears and blow my nose several times. Perhaps it's easier to be angry than it is to hurt as deeply as I'm hurting.

28 days. 4 weeks. One month. What a different person I was a month ago. I didn't have this constant pain in my heart. I didn't force numbness upon myself so as not to feel it. I didn't feel like there was a clock ticking in my ear. I didn't look at people and wonder if they had both their parents. I didn't look at the world as though I was an outsider looking in on all the life that was happening. I am a different person. I am understanding that I will never again be the person I was 29 days ago. Perhaps I'll be "more" like her again. But I'll never be the same. This experience has, and will continue, to change me deep inside.

It's Spring. The weather is beautiful today. My birthday is in exactly 2 weeks. Mother's Day comes 10 days later. My new nephew will be here 11 days after that. Mom's birthday is 2 weeks and 2 days after his. This should be a wonderful time of celebrating in our family. But I don't know how many of these things my mom will see. The past month has proved that things can change very quickly. Mom's birthday is 7 weeks away. 51 days. I don't know what those 51 days are going to do to mom. I don't know is she'll see 73. Hell, I'm mad that John Madden retired today at 73. He's healthy enough that he's worked this long and now is going to retire to be with his family. And my mom may never see 73! That's how I look at the world these days. Nothing seems fair or okay or good anymore.

Tonight I go teach a childbirth class to people that are bringing beautiful babies into the world. I turn on auto pilot and I do my job well. And I know it's good that I have this outlet. I've got two clients due in the next 2 weeks as well and that will be good for me too. Life and Death. It's my entire world right now. And I stand somewhere in the middle trying to make sense of it all. Trying to find the meaning of life in the midst of great heartbreak. That's when we always tend to be looking for it isn't it? I don't expect to find an answer. I just wonder when the pain will subside and I will be able to see more clearly again. And what I know is that I still have a mountain to climb to find that clarity. And it's a big mountain and a scary climb and one that I don't want to make, but one that I know I must.

So, maybe the anger was always to mask the pain. I don't feel as angry after trying to finish this post for the past hour and a half. But now I keep welling up with tears. I don't know which is worse. The anger or the pain. Yes I do...it's the pain. And no matter what I do to try and ignore it, mask it, get away from it...it's always there. It defines me. My mom has cancer and she's dying. No matter how well I function on the outside, that is who I am on the inside. I hurt. I see it when I look in the mirror. I see it in the eyes of the girl who looks back at me. My nearly 40 year old eyes look into the mirror and the little girl inside of me looks back and she's losing her mom. And her eyes tell the story.

And maybe that's the oddest thing of all. I may be nearly 40 years old. I may be a mom myself. But somehow, at my darkest moments, I simply turn back into a 10 year old girl who is scared and wants her mom to come protect her. But my mom can't protect me anymore. I'm out in the open and vulnerable and I have to face this fear on my own. My mom is facing her own fears. Her own reality. And I will hold her hand now as she faces them. The roles have reversed. And I wasn't ready. The almost 40 year old woman can do this somehow for my mom. But the little girl inside is falling to pieces.

I have yet to figure out how a woman processes losing her mom. Maybe we never do. We just go through it because we have no other choice. But what happens to that little girl inside? What does she do now? Where does she go? That I guess I still have to learn.

What I do know is that that little girl inside and the almost 40 year old woman on the outside will never be quite the same again.

We'll never be who we were 29 days ago.

And all of it...every little part of this...as selfish as I know it all is...makes me incredibly sad for me and that little girl.