Mother's Day

This may be a tearful story, for some. Others, who are less fragile, should be fine. But this IS a sad story. No happy ending here; so I'd guess the title is a little misleading. This is a real life experience with a cruel, ironically twisted ending...

I laying in bed, on my side, and was on my laptop, keys clicking softly as I surfed the web, looking around on Facebook, listening to Pandora, watching YouTube. Normal teenager routine for those who own laptops; my mom came in, eyes red and puffy – she must have been crying. But that was unusual, given for a few months she had been giddy with the news my grandmother could possibly pull through the breast cancer that plagued her. I look up at my mom, pulling my eyes away from the bright white lights of the laptop. Mom sighed – a slight sigh, one reserved for bad news.

I could see it in her eyes, before she said it. My heart dropped, crashing down through my organs, taking my stomach with it. All thoughts were cleared from my head. It was like the world stopped – but it hadn't.

“Monka...” She faded off for a moment. Yes, my sister and I called my grandmother on my mom's side Monka. It was just something we did; it kept us close to our grandmother. “Monka's cancer came back. She collapsed on the bathroom floor yesterday, and it's back, stronger than ever. She's in the hospital now, but things don't look too well for her.”

Tears were on the hop, in the corners of my eyes, ready to fall. The world fell around me, and as soon as my mom left, I started crying. Please, please, please let her be okay. I prayed, so hard. She has to be okay. She can't leave all of us now... no, not now... Not me, not my sister, not my mom, not my uncle, not my aunt, nor my two cousins. And above all, she can't leave Pap; not my grandfather.

I slammed the laptop shut and muffled my tears and wails into my pillow. My mom didn't bother coming in, not my sister, and my dad was at work. So I sat and cried, and cried until my tears stopped flowing, and when the tears stopped streaking down my cheeks, I continued to choke and have little hiccups, eventually that turning into heavy breathing, and then I relaxed. I convinced my self that she was going to be okay; I knew she had to be.

Before she was diagnosed, my grandma walked around and lived for 4 years in the pain of breast cancer without knowing it. 4 years; and she was too scared to go to the doctors. My mom had finally convinced her otherwise, being her only child that was very far away (8 hours) and my mom had decided that until Monka went to the doctors, she wasn't going to talk to her until so. My grandma always missed us so, in a way that she used to call everyday – wanting to know how our days were going, everything. When my mom drew that line, my grandmother went – with the company of Pap.

When the diagnose was cleared, no one was prepared for this kind of news. At the time, the chances of her getting through the cancer were bleak, but she pulled through, and now here she was. In a hospital again. If she could pull through it once, she could do it again.

Well, that's what I told myself. And I convinced myself enough that I knew it was TRUE. Everyone was convinced by this, and my family settled down enough to make it through the week. Or so I thought.

On Thursday, my mom got another call about Monka, and at 9:00 at night, we dropped everything and left. Literally. My mom, my sister and I all drove off in the silver Mazda, everything was rapidly stuffed into a luggage bag, and walking out to the car in sweats and a t-shirt. I dropped the act of “she was going to be okay”, and started worrying – big time.

As I faded in and out of sleep, I worried. And when I wasn't worrying, I was sleeping. I slept for about 3 hours if you added the minutes up. When I did sit up, awake but very groggy, I was listening to songs on my iPod – in which I was able to stuff in my pocket in my hurry. I mainly listened to those soppy songs you play over and over when you were down, like Taylor Swift or Adam Lambert, but I was hardly paying attention. I was busy thinking.