From what I can recall it was December 2010 when I was sat down in my living room and given the horrid news.
They asked me how I felt and I told them I was fine.
I brushed it off as if it were nothing, pretending not to care.
Their faces seemed relive, yet worried at the same time.
As I went on with my normal day the next day the news finally registered.
This disease had already killed some friends and family, not my mom now too.
That night I cried to her.
I did not want her to go. This could not be the end. I was not ready.
I stayed with her that night. I held her tight and kept her close not knowing how much longer I might be able to do this.
Our lives went on as normal, but frequent hospital visits became a thing.
A year passed and everything was going smoothly.
February 2011 on super bowl Sunday my mother had surgery.
I visited one of the two or three days she was there.
I do not remember much except for crying the whole way home not wanting to leave my mother.
It pained me to see her in pain and weaker than usual.
I remember some morning not wanting to go to school because she had gotten really sick.
My dad had driven me and I went right into the office crying.
They called my dad back and I remember telling him I was scared that mommy would die.
He told me that was not going to happen.
He lied.
The cancer had finally gone away in late 2011.
Sadly it came back early 2012.
Summer of 2012 it had spread to many places causing her to stop radiation and chemo and be put into a home hospice care.
She seemed fine to me, just weaker.
By this time the hospital was a normal place for me to be,
It had seemed like a second home.
It seemed normal for her to be there.
She would be there for two to seven days and she would come home.
Always the same thing, so I never worried.
As the months passed she got weaker and weaker.
She was probably counting down the days until the agony would end.
For us it was getting up every 5 or so minutes to get her something.
She lived on that same couch where it had all started, now.
It was easier to get her walker around in the large, open space.
December rolled around and things were looking horrible.
It was a dreadful Christmas Eve with family over and her still on that very couch.
It will always bring a tear to my eye that she could not even enjoy her last Christmas.
A day or two after Christmas we brought her to JFK hospice.
The few days she was there will forever live vividly in my mind.
For that I am eternally grateful.
I can tell you everyone who was there and everything that was said.
