The best and worst of times

One month before my mother found the lump, I found out I was pregnant with my 3rd child.   My mother had cancer 2 other times before in her life.  Neither time was fun.  I'm here to tell you it's even less fun when you're pregnant.    And if it's less fun when you're pregnant, it's exponentially less fun the more pregnant you get and the more hormones you have raging through your body.

Being pregnant at 40 didn't help.  I'm sure there are lots of women who rock pregnancy at 40, I'm not one of them.  I didn't rock pregnancy when I wasn't 40 and I'm here to report I rocked it even less at 40.

My last day being pregnant.  

I was quickly the size of a house.   Some of that was definitely Taco Bell drive through related.   But

some of it was also because I carried extra amniotic fluid throughout.  That led to trouble breathing when I laid down from 26 weeks on.   Just when you thought sleeping while pregnant was hard, try feeling like you're not getting enough air.   I don't care how much Tylenol PM you took, the panic you start to feel when you can't breathe really throws off your mojo.  I started binge watching Law & Order reruns late into the night.   I watched so many I actually had to set my DVR to "record all" so enough recorded all day to last until I was ready to fall asleep.  That's a lot of episodes.   

Worst photo from the worst angle of me looking as big as I felt.   Super tempting to delete but also a motivating "before" photo.  

I was also the size of a house because I was carrying the worlds biggest baby.  She was 10 pounds when she was born.  And she was born at 39 weeks!  Unfortunately, the doctor was guesstimating more like 9 pounds so she didn't schedule me for a c-section.   Shoot me now.   She's lucky she's cute.

1 day old.  

But in the meantime, I was visiting oncologists and surgeons with my mother.  On the bright side, everyone at the hospital is really, really nice to you when you are six month's pregnant with the world's largest baby and pushing your mother in a wheelchair.  On the downside, it's hard to lift a folded up wheelchair into the trunk of a 4 door sedan when you are the size of a house.   I had a little lift and bump maneuver with my hip that worked for awhile.  And when it worked less well, my husband only asked once about the scrape on the bumper and we didn't discuss it again.

Meeting grandma

At 7 months, I finally had to arrange for someone else to drive her to radiation because it was physically just too much for me. That's a hard call to make.  But you do it.  And because your mother is kind and sweet and never wants to be a burden, she assures you it's fine and even looks on the bright side that the other person agrees to hit the Krispy Kreme drive thru for a hot now afterward.   But you still feel like a crappy daughter so sometimes you close your office door and cry at your desk at work.

Blue eyes.   My husband and I both have brown eyes.  Who dis?  

A new baby on the way brought my mother a great deal of happiness.  I firmly believe she lived as long as she did after the diagnosis because of the new baby.   I think it lifted her up and carried her during some difficult days.  And I think sometimes I felt lifted up, too.   Three days after having a baby, I drug my tired, swollen and emotional self to the cell phone store and upgraded my mother's crappy 10 year old flip phone to an iPhone 6 Plus so I could text her photos and videos every day.  Money well spent.   

Photos of babies with giant hair bows are good for you.

I was 2 months pregnant when my mother had the biopsy.  5 months pregnant when she had the double mastectomy.  7 months pregnant when they said she needed chemotherapy but that chemo wasn't medically recommended because she'd had chemo two times before.   I was also 7 months pregnant when my mother told me she figured she'd had 69 years and 69 Christmases and that that was pretty good and made her peace with her prognosis.

A 70th Christmas

I gave birth to my third child in the midst of radiation.  My new baby was 6 months old when the cancer returned.   9 months old when I had to pick a hospice company.  And  11 months and 21 days old when I held my mother's hand for the last time.

7 month photos taken in her hospital room. 

My two older kids actually had their first day of school the day before.   I'd taken their pictures in front of the house.   Four hours later the amazingly kind hospice lady called to tell me the end was near and that I should come.    Nothing highlights how the world keeps turning even when your own life is falling apart like showing your mother photos of the first day of school on her deathbed.  Celebrating a first birthday just a couple days after the funeral is pretty surreal, too.

That first day of school photo.  Also the last photo I showed my mother.

Life is complicated.   Rarely convenient.  And sometimes the worst stuff happens at the same time as the great stuff.  The story of my mother's death is intertwined with the arrival of this third child.  She is cute and sweet and arrived when I needed her.  There are days when she is a tyrant who saps my will to live.   But there are also days she restores me.   And that's life.

The cutest dictator on the block.   

#selfcare2019

The first year after my mother’s death was hard.   I knew it would be hard.  But I had no idea just how hard or what the hard would look like.  

Like, I didn’t realize it was possible to sit at a table and eat dinner with your family and just silently cry while continuing to eat.   More than once.   A lot more than once.

So, yeah.  It was much harder than I ever imagined.   Really hard.   Sort of like how the Grand Canyon is really big.  

According to Google and every self help book I read, the first year would be the hardest.   So I kept my expectations for myself low.   I focused on enduring not conquering.   You know, like, get out of bed in the morning.   Sit on the couch with the kids.    Inhale a sleeve of Oreos.   Take enough sleeping pills so can fall right to sleep without laying in the dark thinking after you turn the lights out.

Some days were good.  Some weren’t.      

The 2^nd year I decided it was time to turn the page.   I was feeling stronger and rarely cried in the shower anymore.    But I also found myself sort of directionless.  There’s a freedom in feeling like you're starting the next chapter of your life but it can also be intimidating to think about all the different ways you can write that next chapter.   Like when you go to a restaurant with a 32 page menu and everything sounds good but you’re scared you’ll choose the wrong thing and hate it.   Except it’s your life and it's overwhelming.   And then you decide to go lay in bed and watch Real Housewives and play Toy Blast on your phone.    

I like to think I’m finally starting to right the ship.   I didn’t start dramatically when the 2nd anniversary rolled around or anything like that.   Just one random day in May when I was tired of being tired and decided to try to do better.  And then I did.   One small thing at a time.    I stopped drinking soda.   I got an overdue hair cut.  I started wearing my Fitbit again.  I tried a new shampoo.   

Stupid stuff other people probably do all the time without thinking about.   Stuff it's requiring me some thought to figure out.  

And when the 2^nd anniversary came, I just promised myself I'd stay the course.   And when New Year’s came, I even decided to call it #selfcare2019.    

And as soon as the thought passed through my brain, I knew my mother would be a fan.     She always looked for things she could do or give me to make my day better, easier, prettier or funnier.    Sometimes it was watching the kids for me so I could go wander around Target and buy things I don't need.  Sometimes it was going to the doctor with me so I didn’t have to sit alone in the waiting room.   Sometimes it was running an errand for me.   She once gave me a big gift card for a maid service.   I’d never paid someone to clean my house before. I guess I thought that was for rich people and that it wasn’t anything I could afford.    I can also be kinda cheap.   But she thought I worked hard and never had time for myself and that if someone else cleaned my house that would save me time and she wanted to be able to give me that.   She also knew it was something I’d never do for myself.    For six months I walked into my clean house once a week and every time I’d sort of exhale and smile and the sun would shine brighter that day. 

I remind myself of that when I try to cut a corner on #selfcare2019.   It would be like cutting a corner on her not just myself.   I should honor her memory not cut her corners.  

Me and the world's loudest toothbrush.   Let's not discuss how many times the dentist has recommended one and I blew off the advice of a trained professional.  

My self-care this month as been starting Couch to 5K again.  I also bought myself a sonic toothbrush.   Both are good for me.   Both have had me on the verge of throwing up.  Who knew brushing your tongue with an electric toothbrush is so gag inducing if you’re not careful.        

At any rate, my dentist would be proud.   So would my mother.

Today was that day

My mother died 2 years ago.    She died 9 months after the last radiation treatment.   14 months after the double mastectomy.   21 months after she found the lump.   

She became a single mother when I was 10, worked full time, raised two kids and did the best she could.   As a mother, she was loving and kind and always our biggest fan.   She bought me super girl t-shirts and Wonder Woman knick knacks throughout my life and I know that’s because that’s how she saw me.   Capable of anything. 

She always took an interest in whatever we were interested in.  There can be no other explanation for her interest in fish when my brother got a giant fish tank or the number of times we spent our summer vacation at a professional football training camp even though she had no interest in football.  We went on adventures to the World Figure Skating Championships, romance novel conventions and Graceland.   She was up for anything and just happy to be there with us.  

She was an avid reader, watched The Young and the Restless every day and loved shopping online for things she was convinced I needed.   She thought getting her fingernails painted was a big treat, her favorite ice cream was butter pecan and she loved these stupid Maple Cream Eggs at Easter that they only sold at Walgreens.  She loved chocolate, Orange Crush soda with a bowl of popcorn and a good steak.  She thought Tina Turner was a tough chick, Tom Select was handsome and Joan Rivers was funny.   She was stubborn but sweet.   Frugal but generous.  Feisty but funny.    She weathered many health issues over the course of her life.   Too many to name.  But she survived cancer and chemo two times.   The third time she didn’t.

She was 70 years old when she died.    

She died on a Tuesday.   The service was on Friday and I went back to work on Monday.   She was cremated and her ashes will be buried under a tree someday when I’m ready.  I think she’ll like that.   I  think she’d like the shade it would provide.   She’d like the strong limbs to hold a swing for a kid.   And she’d like for me to have a place to go to sit and talk to her.   Because there are many things about losing her that are difficult but losing my best friend is by far the hardest.   I talked to her every day for as long as I could remember.   And now I don’t.   No one could ever find the mundane details of my life so interesting.   No one’s voice was such a calm and fortifying force on my difficult days.   I’m thankful to have had that for as long as I did.   She was kind and sweet and the world is a little less sweet without her.   Or at least I know my world is.  

She lived with me for almost 10 years before her death.   But even before that, I spent most of my life taking care of her in one way or another.   Sometimes it almost feels like losing a child.  Except with children you had a life before they arrived.    You can remember a life before them even though the memories are distant and fuzzy.     But in this case, there was no before.    There had always been her.   Except now there isn’t.  

It's been a hard two years.   There hasn’t been one day that’s gone by without me thinking of her.  

I stopped writing on my blog right around the time she found the lump.   Looking back I know that wasn’t a coincidence.    All my words were gone.   And I had no courage to try to look for them.   It was enough to just get up in the morning.    

But that can’t be enough forever.   And eventually you realize the words are there again.   And then one day you find the courage to say them.

I didn’t know it when I woke up this morning.  But turns out today was that day.     

And it feels a little like finding an old friend that you missed.   Or maybe I’m just finding myself again.  Or maybe I'm just finding myself period.

I found this photo of my mother last year and couldn't get over how much she looked like me.   I'd never once thought that before.   And that was the first time since her death that I genuinely felt like she'd always be with me.