I wish I sat with my mother
On grief, mother-daughters, and imaginary fairy godmothers.
On grief, mother-daughters, and the fairy godmother I wish I had
I’m seated next to my mom in a Manhattan doctor’s office, as small as the rent is high.
She obediently stretches herself out on the exam table, and her oncologist palpates her lower abdomen. He quickly declares the tumor has shrunk dramatically in size — already 80 percent from her first chemo treatment. Even so, my mother winces in pain from his touch and the effort of positioning herself on the table.
My mom, who’s the same height as me (5’5), and has always been slightly heavier, has faded to below 100 pounds.
The oncologist complains of the laborious process required to prescribe pain medication; there’s been a mix-up with where my mom’s meds were sent, which meant she had to pay out of pocket. When I mention I work in public health and know a thing or two about the regulations, he shows me his computer screen, seemingly more of an attempt to emphasize his point then actually correct the issue for my mother, or pacify the daughter, whose mind is wandering elsewhere.
I moved to Colorado four weeks ago to work as a mental health and substance use epidemiologist for Boulder County. A new life only partially unwrapped — a job where I’m partially on-boarded, friends yet to be met, and hurried texts — there will be no second dates. I wonder if I should apply for jobs in NYC, if Boulder was never meant to be.
My old Toyota Yaris sits in the airport daily parking. When I finally return to Denver, a month after my initial departure, I’ll spend an hour in a daze, wandering the dark lot looking for it, before realizing I’m on the wrong side of the airport.
Up until the day of my rushed exit, my mom had assured me she was OK, that this move was the best thing I could do. She would tell me when it was time for me to come home, she promised. That day, on the phone her voice had changed. I heard a panic that was new, and left that same day.
Back in the doctor’s office, the oncologist announces he wants to give my mom a bag of fluids via IV before we head the 60 miles upstate.
There is no talk of prognosis, of what’s next. Death is never mentioned. The verdict of 80 percent reduction is a bright light, obscuring all other possibilities. I am moth to this light’s flame, and the light blinds to the other reality of my mom’s suffering, struggling body, which if we looked, if we listened may have told a different story.
We walk the handful of steps to a larger room. The room feels sterile and is brightly lit. Patients with their personal IV bag, sit in two rows. Each in their own state of disease or healing, some more and less blatant.
Uncomfortable, I say I’ll grab a snack from a nearby coffee shop and do some work.
I leave my mom sitting in the fluorescent room, with the lights she would have hated and her IV drip drip dripping. If she had the energy, she likely fished in her purse, finding her phone and clicking to an audiobook for distraction and escape.
As I walk out of the room, a nurse turns her head. She trails me out the door. She stops me in my tracks. She stares in my eyes and wordlessly puts her hands on my shoulders. Her hands are warm and push my feet just a little deeper into the hard sidewalk below.
“Honey, stay with you mom,” she says.
I stare back.
“Open your eyes. She needs you. You need her. Take some deep breaths, collect yourself. This will be hard honey, but stay with it. Your job, those men, the friends. Let the pieces fall where they may. Now, be with your mother.”
I nod, wordlessly following her back into the fluorescent room. I take a seat next to my mom, whose eyes open a little bit wider. Whose lips press into a hopeful smile. I hold her hand.
If only. There was no fairy godmother nurse that day.
My eyes remained stubbornly shut. My body stayed in a state of frustration and tension. Broken, by quick sparkles of redemption, of deep connection where the immense amount of love between us flowed freely finding fertile landing ground. Yet those were moments; the overarching theme of that time was frustration, loneliness and retraction.
Exiting the doctor’s office, I make my way down the street and into a coffee shop. It’s dimly lit and I don’t order much. Within an hour, my mom texts and we drive back upstate. Mom feels every irregularity in the road course through her body, as we make our way North on the Hudson River Parkway and up and over the George Washington Bridge and eventually through the winding back roads that lead to our home.
It’s been over four years since my mom has passed. I don’t know if her treatment could have been different. I don’t know if she knew how close she stood to death. I don’t know if anything I did could have changed what was happening on a cellular level, from both the cancer and the treatment of it. So I keep my wish simple. I wish I had sat with her that day. I wish I had held her hand and opened my heart just a little bit wider to her on that rainy New York day.
If you’re dealing with the illness of a loved one, let the pain of my transmission be the kind nurse:
Take a deep breath. Ground yourself in this moment. Draw strength from the earth, the stars, the sun, the flow of life all around you. Go be present ❤
