Saturday, March 6, 2010

The Month of March

It was this month, 5 years ago, that my mom was dying.  She was under hospice care at her and my dad's home, and we knew time was limited.  She died at the end of March 2005.  What a terrible month that was.  And urgh...that year.  The worst ever.

Up to that point, Mom had been battling ovarian cancer for about 5 years.  Not every day seemed like a battle, though.  Lots of days were happy.  But that damn cancer was always looming in the back of our minds.

The day the doctor told us that she had cancer and what that all meant, I started to realize Mom wouldn't always be around.  As naive as it sounds, I don't think I ever considered that one day, Mom would just be gone from this world.  Needless to say, that idea hit me like a heavy, painful ton of bricks.  But we still had many days together, and I don't think I took another one of them for granted from that point on.  And if there is any kind of blessing in this story about Mom, maybe that is it. 

By the very end of Mom's life, I don't think I left any words I had to say to her unspoken.   I think Mom had the chance to tell me everything she wanted to say to me, too.   And that, I think, is very lucky.

I could curse those 5 years Mom had to endure her illness.  And I could absolutely hate the month of March.  But instead, I choose to look at that time as time I didn't take for granted.

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