occasionally. Who would look after her when I was gone? I was all she had. How could life be so cruel as to take me away from her? For the benefit of us both, I avoided further eye contact as I sat myself down at her bedside.
“Give me a hug, dear,” she requested.
With eyes still averted, I leant down and cradled her head in my arm. “Hi mum,” I mumbled. “How ya been?”
Giving my arm a gentle kiss she began giving me a breakdown of the television she’d seen, the mail she’d received and food she’d consumed. It all flew from her mouth in one unbroken sentence, assailing me with redundant information. The parent/child relationship, especially when the child has entered the world of adulthood, often descends into a series of practiced platitudes. The automatic drive to conduct the relationship without emotional interference enforces itself. I saw my mother multiple times a week and each conversation was a variation on a well-practiced theme. I broke the hug and finally caught her eyes again.
“Mum… I gotta tell you something… something pretty important.”
“What is it dear? You look upset.”
My mother was no fool. The slightest variation in my emotional demeanor was seized upon by her instinct. When you spend long enough in the presence of another, you can read the energy around them. The moment I pulled up in the driveway, I have no doubt a strange knot formed in the pit of her stomach. That knot was about to get so much tighter.
I took one more choked breath. “Okay, so I need to just say this so please, just listen to what I have to say and we can discuss it afterward.”
“Okay… go ahead, love.” Worry filled her voice.
“I’ve been experiencing some pretty messed up health issues lately… so much so that I went to the doctor. I mean… I don’t just decide to go to the doctor. It has to be serious. Anyway, I had some tests run to see what was up… It turns out… I have bowel cancer. It turns out… that I’m going to die.”
After these words left my mouth, we both sat in total silence, our eyes locked. The silent seconds were a painful drag amplifying the dread that permeated us. A single tear drizzled from my mother’s left eye and travelled down the wrinkles on her face, leaving a wet stain. I bit my bottom lip, warding of my own water works, biting as hard as I could to keep them in. A bead of blood consumed my front teeth.
“So, what do we do?” she finally asked in a disarming, professional tone. “We’ll sit down and write a list… concoct an attack. We’ll approach it methodically and sort this out.”
“Mum… I don’t think there’s anything we can do…”
She began to jitter and her tears fell freely. I shuffled closer and held a tissue to her nose, which she filled, wet and warm with snotty tears. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into me, feeling her sadness soak into me. A sickness in my muscles made them feel heavy and my brain felt like wood, pushing against my skull, trying to break through.
“How can you say there’s nothing we can do?” she screamed. “I’m not going to lay back and watch my baby die!”
I’d never heard such desperation in my mother’s voice. As I cradled her, I felt heavy dread crawl over me like thousands of ants. My body tickled and stung. I wanted to hug all of her fear away, even if it meant taking it on myself. The truth was my body was already full of so much fear that I doubted I’d have found room for my mothers… but I’d try.
“I’m going to get help for you,” she said, the big hand that concluded her body balling into a tight fist. “If there’s anything that can be done, we’re doing it. I’ll call every damn doctor in the country if I have to. Someone somewhere must be able to do something. People get cancer all the time. Technology has become better than you or I will ever imagine. There’s probably a pill you can take that’ll dissolve the cancer. There’s natural remedies, faith
“Give me a hug, dear,” she requested.
With eyes still averted, I leant down and cradled her head in my arm. “Hi mum,” I mumbled. “How ya been?”
Giving my arm a gentle kiss she began giving me a breakdown of the television she’d seen, the mail she’d received and food she’d consumed. It all flew from her mouth in one unbroken sentence, assailing me with redundant information. The parent/child relationship, especially when the child has entered the world of adulthood, often descends into a series of practiced platitudes. The automatic drive to conduct the relationship without emotional interference enforces itself. I saw my mother multiple times a week and each conversation was a variation on a well-practiced theme. I broke the hug and finally caught her eyes again.
“Mum… I gotta tell you something… something pretty important.”
“What is it dear? You look upset.”
My mother was no fool. The slightest variation in my emotional demeanor was seized upon by her instinct. When you spend long enough in the presence of another, you can read the energy around them. The moment I pulled up in the driveway, I have no doubt a strange knot formed in the pit of her stomach. That knot was about to get so much tighter.
I took one more choked breath. “Okay, so I need to just say this so please, just listen to what I have to say and we can discuss it afterward.”
“Okay… go ahead, love.” Worry filled her voice.
“I’ve been experiencing some pretty messed up health issues lately… so much so that I went to the doctor. I mean… I don’t just decide to go to the doctor. It has to be serious. Anyway, I had some tests run to see what was up… It turns out… I have bowel cancer. It turns out… that I’m going to die.”
After these words left my mouth, we both sat in total silence, our eyes locked. The silent seconds were a painful drag amplifying the dread that permeated us. A single tear drizzled from my mother’s left eye and travelled down the wrinkles on her face, leaving a wet stain. I bit my bottom lip, warding of my own water works, biting as hard as I could to keep them in. A bead of blood consumed my front teeth.
“So, what do we do?” she finally asked in a disarming, professional tone. “We’ll sit down and write a list… concoct an attack. We’ll approach it methodically and sort this out.”
“Mum… I don’t think there’s anything we can do…”
She began to jitter and her tears fell freely. I shuffled closer and held a tissue to her nose, which she filled, wet and warm with snotty tears. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into me, feeling her sadness soak into me. A sickness in my muscles made them feel heavy and my brain felt like wood, pushing against my skull, trying to break through.
“How can you say there’s nothing we can do?” she screamed. “I’m not going to lay back and watch my baby die!”
I’d never heard such desperation in my mother’s voice. As I cradled her, I felt heavy dread crawl over me like thousands of ants. My body tickled and stung. I wanted to hug all of her fear away, even if it meant taking it on myself. The truth was my body was already full of so much fear that I doubted I’d have found room for my mothers… but I’d try.
“I’m going to get help for you,” she said, the big hand that concluded her body balling into a tight fist. “If there’s anything that can be done, we’re doing it. I’ll call every damn doctor in the country if I have to. Someone somewhere must be able to do something. People get cancer all the time. Technology has become better than you or I will ever imagine. There’s probably a pill you can take that’ll dissolve the cancer. There’s natural remedies, faith
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