Reframing the Past

Almost eleven and a half years ago, just 2 years after we moved to North Carolina, I found out that my mom had cancer. She had been in pain for much of the spring and summer, but had assumed that the pain came from falling while walking her dogs. By the time the right tests were run she had stage IV cancer.

Much of the discomfort that she was experiencing, it turned out, was because one of her lungs was surrounded by fluid. The doctors in the community where she lived were only able to remove a little bit of it, but there were surgeons at UNC who would be able to remove all of it—so she came to stay with me so that she could have this surgical procedure done.

When we went and met with the doctors they told her that it was a simple procedure and that she would be in the hospital for 2-3 days afterwards. Instead her lung was punctured during the procedure and she was in the hospital for 10 days after the surgery. Eventually my dad checked her out of the hospital against the doctors advice and took her home, where she lived for about two more months.

At this time I had three children, ages 9, 5, and 2. In the 11 days my mom was in the hospital at UNC, an hour from my house, I drove there 14 times. My little kids were babysat for hours every day by kind and loving friends, but they were obviously stressed. During the two months that she lived after the surgery the kids and I drove the 4+ hours each way to my parents' home many times. I was grateful to live close enough to be able to do that and grateful that we homeschooled so that missing school was not an issue. I was also overwhelmed; one of the ways I knew that was that for many years after her death I knew exactly how many miles I had driven in those months before she died. And for the next year whenever I took Cindy Lynn for her quarterly checkup at the CF clinic at UNC and I drove up the long road that the hospital was on, I got sick to my stomach.

This is a picture of me and one of my dearest friends, Katie. Katie was my visiting teacher when my mom died and she was one of the people who most helped me deal with the emotional trauma of my mom's death. Katie has been very sick and in the hospital for the last 2 1/2 weeks out in Utah. I am surprised by the amount of helplessness I have felt during this time. If I was there I could help in some way. I could make meals and watch children and clean the house and even shovel snow. Instead I worry and call and ask for updates and pray for their family and worry some more.

I was talking to one of my sisters about how difficult this has been for me, and she quietly said something like "Now you know how it was for us when Mom was sick in North Carolina and we (the other daughters) were all in Utah."

Talk about an instant paradigm shift. In the years since my mom's death, while I've always been grateful to have been here in North Carolina so that I had time with her and was able to have helped so much, I've been equally aware of what a physical and emotional hardship it was on me and my kids.

Suddenly I saw clearly what I never could have comprehended before—the constant worry and fretting that my sisters endured being so far away from our mother for most of that time. Suddenly the feelings of burden associated with those memories fell away and all I was left with was gratitude. How blessed I was to be the one who was living close enough to sit with our mother in the hospital every day. How blessed I was that I could visit her at home without needing a plane ticket to do it. How blessed I was to be surrounded by friends who cared for my (probably cranky) children so that I could have the luxury of all of that time with my mother.

And how blessed I am to be able to see more clearly now.

P.S. In two weeks I'm going out to Utah to see Katie for a few days. I'm going to watch her kids, and cook some meals, and do some cleaning, and even shovel snow if need be!