Remember my amazing mom

How often this past year, with my own ordeal of breast cancer, did I hear her voice in my head, motivating me to be strong, to stay the course, to get through it. Many times I thought of her and how bad it was for her, in the 70s, before anti-emetics existed, on the chemo.

I am not my mother. That’s my mantra. In many ways, I wish I were more like my mom (she was patient, and extremely popular…everyone loved her.) but even though I did not have the BRCA genes for cancer, it’s hard not to think that your own progression will be just like what you’ve seen happen to your own loved ones.

“You are not your mother. Your mother’s cancer is not your cancer.” I keep hearing. And I know that.

I know it in my head. But in my soul, it feels like I’m counting down now, to a possible end. And what that might be like.

I can hear my mom’s voice, just before I wake up some mornings. When I go to sleep in a complete quandry, and not knowing how to make a decisions (for example, when I was trying to decide between mastectomy and radiation) and I learned in my teens that your mom is always right. When I heard her tell me not to mutilate myself, I knew that’s how she would have felt my drastic decision to have mastectomy and no reconstruction would have been. She had to have a radical mastectomy, AND radiation, so she got the worst of both worlds. She did not have a reconstruction until the procedures for autologous donation were perfected in the 1990s.

I’ve walked this whole path, last year, of breast cancer, and thought about my mom with each step. I was 11 when she was diagnosed, and 38 when she died. She held out for me—she was stubborn like that. When they told her she had maybe a year to live, she defiantly told the white coats “no, you’re wrong.”

And they were.

So, I have much to learn from her still, and I’m trying to, but to no avail yet. She was like a zen master with her confidence and assuredness. I’m a bug that cowers in the dark corner feeling self-pity and seeing the worst of everything.

Where she had a 1% chance, and a 99% danger, she took the 1% and ran with it, whereas I have a 99% chance, and a 1% danger, and it scares me to death.

I’m thankful for those nearly 3 decades she was given, for her to protect me and take care of me from the age of 11 to 38, but more—for the role model of how to “be” and gracefully grow old and be her own woman.

She was quite a woman.

I went out in the back yard and hacked down some of the overgrowth that had occured while I was in NY.

I’m lucky my hubby remembered to water the plants at all…he had no idea how to cut back and prune.

So today, I went out there with the saw and fiskars and cut back some of the jungle.

My lemon tree had gotten about 14 feet high, and no lemons (bastard…make with the lemons!) and my rosemary bush had turned into a 7 foot high, 6 foot wide monster. (They say it grows well in a house where the woman is stubborn. I’ll say!)

I thought about my mom quite frequently. That back yard was hers, and I seldom did anything in it. She knew so much about plants and roses and all these neat mom things. I just go out and trim when it gets out of control, and pull weeds before they get too big.

Sometimes, when I’m working out there, I wonder that a 75 year old woman could maintain it as much as she did. It wears me out (granted, I have MS and have zero energy, especially in the hot sun) but she was on chemo for years, and never complained once. I think it comes down to her love of actual gardening…I just love the garden for leisurely activities, reading a book, etc. I like it to be orderly, but I don’t like getting it there.

She’s somehow with me, in mind, when I’m out there working on that yard.
So strange.

We miss you.

Mom’s day was really hard for us.
We kids would do crazy stuff like burn toast and make a mess in the kitchen which she’d later have to clean up. (our hearts were in the right place, and mom knew it)

My mom hated the fuss.

The most romantic thing my husband ever did for me, was to treat my mom so well. On mom’s day, he was more into doing things for my mom than his own (I’d have to be the one to get cards and gifts off to her)

And on valentine’s day, he knows I hate getting cut flowers, he’d show up at the house with a big bouquet and just as my face would stiffen he’d say “they’re for your mom! they’re for your mom!” and I’d melt.

She loved us so very much.
And she knew we loved her in return.
Really, she didn’t need a day to be told that.

Love your moms while you got ‘em folks.
Make every day mother’s day.
Then days like today won’t be as tough, because you’ll know that you didn’t wait for a calander to tell you to make mom feel special.

:)

Now, get off the net and go pamper mom.

I don’t know. I’ve deleted every junk email that says “Let mom know you love her!” I did that every day of her life, chump.

Do we really need a day on the calander to do that? Please folks, if your mom is still alive, worship her and tell her you love her and give her your unconditional affection while you can; she’ll be gone some day.

I think about my mom every day, but moreso lately.

Before coming to this crazy country, my parents went to night school in Buenos Aires, to learn English. They were very proud of themselves for being able to walk around and say “good day! how are you today?” “very well, thank you. And you?” and so on. My mom used to laugh when she told me this story. “we thought we were so good because we understood each other!” she laughed.

Her father was from Manchester England, but had left it all during the turn of the century to make his fortune in the rich and fertile soils of Argentina (he sold farming equipment, like industrialized types…big factory farm stuff…gives me the shudders to think about it)

So, anyway, it was always my mom’s dream to learn English, as her father and his brother spoke it—she thought it must be the most melifluous language in the world.

So, when my Italian, gypsy father came up with the idea to come to the USA, my mom looked at her son, then just a baby, and saw the life her brothers were living (working hard to put a meal on the table) she wanted more for him.

Selling everything and coming here with two suitcases in tow, and a pocket full of cash, the three of them came.

When they arrived, they couldn’t understand a single word of what anyone was saying to them. They’d fumble thru dictionaries and look for words, and people would lose patience with them and think they were stupid, merely because they couldn’t communicate well in English.

So, they came here with words like “lift” and “lorry” and “braces” rather than “elevator” and “Truck” and “suspenders” and people thought they were from the moon. They’d learned English English, not American English…they didn’t know there was a difference.

My brother was thrust into school without the benefit of one word of English. And came home crying daily, having been beaten up mercilessly by the bullies.

I watched the movie “The Terminal” in which Tom Hanks is on his way over to the US from Krakozhia, a country which disolves in eastern block unrest while he’s in the air, and is stuck at JFK terminal while the politics get sorted out.

The scene where he’s trying to figure out the english subtitles on CNN, and his evident frustration at trying to quickly read the words he could very scarcely understand…that made me cry, thinking of my parents.

So, in 8 days, I walk across the dias on an Ivy League campus, receiving my second professional degree. I wasn’t even a dream when they came to this country, before my birth.

I’m the first one to go to college, and all the struggles and late nights I’ve suffered through this year have been nothing comapred to how hard my folks had it when they got here. My mom used to spend her time reading things and decifering them for my father, writing all the definitions in the margin, so that he could take his barber’s licence and make a living. My poor dad would come home after 12 hours on his feet, shaving heads at the presidio for the GIs going into the military, and start studying so he could get a real job in a fancy hotel or something…my mom doing all his pre-work for him.

Complain? never once.
So what right have I to say “I’m tired,” or “this is hard?”

I grew up here and I speak the language my mother struggled so hard to learn, and never got over the shame of her Spanish accent, although everyone loved it and told her how beautiful it was. I’d give anything to hear her voice again, in Spanish or even her thickly accented English.

My friends woud rub her and try to get her to say “sheet” because it was funny to them she said “shit” and she knew they were just pulling her leg, and smile and chuckle, “you misfits.” She never got the hang of “refridgerator” and my friends would say “oh Mom, it’s just a fridge!” One friend once said “I like you’re mom, because she always prepares dinner, not makes it, like my mom…this must be why your mom’s cooking is better” LOL

I appreciate all her struggles. And when I walk across that dias and they say my name and put that white coat on me, I know she’ll be there with me.

Today, my birthday, as I was getting ready to leave, I decided to sort out the recycling so I could drop it in the recycle bin on the way out.

I dropped it, and out came a hot pink post it with “Elsa” and a phone number written on it.

When I first got here, I had to have blood titres drawn to make sure all my vaccinations were up to snuff. The nurse’s name was Elsa, like my mom.

Today of all days, this year old piece of paper pops out at me.

I know you’re with me, mom.
Thanks.
:)
(and I promise to be careful)

the 3 year anniversary of her death.

My first thought when I saw myself on the schdule was “take it off” but then her voice came into my head and said “don’t be stupid, what…are you going to take that day off for the rest of your life and mourn? Live your life! get out there and learn! you have to learn so much! why would you take the day off!?”

So I went to work.
I learned lots of stuff, and no one cut me any damned slack.
But, I was able to talk to my patient, who is fully present and trapped in his body that’s failing around him. I was able to put my hand on his forhead and talk to him. I was able to translate to a non-english speaking family what the Doc was saying (your husband is not going to make it, he’s not doing well, less than 5% chance…and I was able to throw in my condolences on our behalf, though the doctor didn’t say it, for which she thanked me)

It was a rough day. But at least I honored my mom’s memory and was tough about it. And I’m glad now that I’m in an ICU setting, to think that at least she didn’t linger on a ventilator, getting tube feedings…

I was thinking this all week, because of Brother Matty’s poem.

My father was a drinker.
And he raged.
He didn’t have a problem with taking it out on my mom.

I was thinking about how nature makes daughters and fathers turn away from each other to protect the species from inbreeding. It’s normal and expected at puberty.

M is an amazing father. I was trying to find a scientific way to remind him of this (because he’s brilliant, who am I to tell him anything) But it started me thinking about my own father.

My brother did a good job in protecting my mom, but at 18 he ran off to the military. In my brother’s absense, I was left alone with my parents. I was 7 years old.

By the time I hit puberty (early, as is common with girls growing up in violent households) my father and I loathed each other. We never had that father/daughter bond, (perhaps briefly when I was about 4 or 5.)

At puberty, the fledgling jockeys for alpha status. The old lion feels his youth slipping away, and perceives that the young lion will replace him and take over the pride, so to speak.

This alpha/omega stuff; the struggle for self-identity as we mature into our roles as adults…it’s tough. I know a lot of women who deal with this stuff in regard to their mom.

I never once questioned my mom’s authority—on all things female, she was the top dog, she knew everything there was to know about babies, when my neice and nephew were born, what “elegance” was, how to wear make up and be sexy and gracious and classy all at once.

She knew all there was to know about things domestic, the secrets for all the tricks of the female trade (and, yes, I above all am keenly aware of how sad that “female” equals “domestic” trust me, I’ve railed against this my whole life.)

So, it just struck me that as I struggled for adulthood, what I did was take the alpha male position away from my father, not my mother. My father had been a poor excuse of a husband, and so my brother and I filled the role traditionally filled by the husband: protector, confidant, companion…all these things he was incapable of doing.

With reason, my father was acutely threatened by me. When I came home from my first year of architecture, on a spring break, my first morning back, just moments after waking up, his first words to me were that he had built a house from the ground up with his own hands, would I ever be able to say that?

So, I’ve learned something amazing about myself. Something I never knew. 43 is a cathartic place. I wonder how many people in therapy could be “cured” by starting a 43 account.

my neice and nephew, husband and I would all awaken to the smell of pancakes.

These were really crepes.

My neice and nephew, whom had awakened hours before us, were quietly seated at the table, with shakers full of powdered sugar, pots of jam, syrups, honey—a diabetic’s worst night mare.

But, as a kid, growing up, when my diabetic best friend stayed over, it was diabetic maple syrup on the table, which my mom bought for her according to her mom’s recommendation of brand.

Everyone loved my mom’s pancakes.

Was born the middle of seven children, in the middle of the year, in the middle of the month, in Argentina. She grew up happy, in a loving, close-knit family. She went to school, went to dances, and had a disarming smile that made people love her immediately.

She was the strongest, most amazing person I have ever known.