Has it been this long? This long since I have wrote. Since I have committed my thoughts to paper. It's been over a year. A year since my Mom was stolen from me.
You see, cancer stole my mom from my life on August 12, 2012...just shy of our birthdays. I can still remember in complete clarity the final week I had with her. But even that week she was already gone. She slowly slipped into a coma due to the cancer that had spread to her brain.That week is a blur of people coming in and out of my parent's house to see her and say goodbye. I remember being so angry at all of them. Why did they wait until she was already gone to come and make peace with her. People that my Mom hadn't been in contact with for years came out of the woodwork. Why didn't they come visit her when she was still around to enjoy them. She would have been so excited to see them and chat. But now she was already gone. She just laid there. Unaware of what was going on and who was around her.
I remember the last thing that my Mom told me. Long before, when Mom was just put on hospice I remember a conversation I had with her. I told her that I wanted her to fight for as long as she could but I wouldn't make her promise to fight and live. I instead made her promise to let me know when she was too tired to fight anymore. My beautiful Mother kept her last promise to me. The day that I arrived at my parent's, and the last time she was even sort of awake for any extent of time with me, she looked at me and said "I'm dying." I told her "Yes, you are. And it is OK." And then she started crying. That still haunts me. That was the last conversation that I had with my Mom.
The last thing I heard her say? After getting changed and settled back in Uncle R. came into the room and told her she looked pretty. She perked up a bit and said "Thank you." Then she said "I love you." That was it. That was the last time I heard her voice.
Finally, at 3am on Sunday August 12, she slipped away from us while we were all resting. I think that she waited until that moment to die. That she picked the timing. It was the first time that the house was quiet. The first time that Auntie, along with everyone else, had fallen asleep. And then she was gone.
I can still remember Dad waking me up and saying "She is gone." The first thing I said was "It's OK Dad. She isn't suffering anymore. She isn't in pain." And then I went downstairs and spent the next four hours sitting beside my beautiful Mother for the last time.I stroked her hair and held her hand. I told her I loved her and thanked her for all of the gifts that she had given me. The gift of life, of love, of being everything I ever wanted and needed in a Mom. Finally, I kissed her forehead, told her I loved her one more time, and then she was gone. I will never see my mom again.
My family recently told me that they still remember me sitting with her. That I refused to leave. To talk to anyone. I honestly don't remember any of it. I just remember looking at my Mom for the last time. Trying to remember the feel of her skin, every line of her face, looking at ours hands together for the last time.
Even today I can remember. Sometimes, there are memories that my nightmares are made of. Memories that will keep me up all night because I am afraid to close my eyes and see her that way again. To have seen her suffer was my own personal hell. Other times I have wonderful and happy memories. I can still hear her laugh. See her eyes sparkle. I now look at my hands and see my Mom's hands. I smile when I realize that some of my mannerisms are the same as my Mom's. I try to remind myself that while Mom is now behind the veil she is still with me. That she is living on through me and others that miss her nearly as much as I do. I think that my Mom was really the other half of my soul. I will never be fully complete without her here with me. But I can remember her. I can honor her memory.
So, as tears stream down my face I know my Mom is still with me. I will never be healed completely. But I will continue to put one foot in front of the other. I will find the joys that life still has for me. I will live for both of us.
