WALKWITHLUNE

I remember the first time that I learned about breast cancer. My grandmother had to explain it to me when she told me that my mom was diagnosed. It was such a hard concept to wrap my head around.

I remember seeing what the treatments put my mom through. She was frail and had a shaved head. She didn’t have her breast anymore and had a fake one she used to stuff her bra.

I remember thinking that since her breast was removed she would be okay. But I also remember the moment my grandmother got the call that my mom’s cancer had come back and more aggressively. It was spreading through out her body. “I’m so sorry,” was what my grandma told me, and I put my head in my hands and cried. Because even though I was so young and hadn’t fully experienced a close death yet, a part of me knew that it would come.

I remember seeing my mom on and off again. The fluids had made her tummy swollen to the point where she looked pregnant. She was in pain, but she kept fighting.

I remember going to the hospital because things were only getting worse. My mother was being put on hospice, but I didn’t know what that meant yet. My aunts and grandma had to leave the hospital room so my mom could explain that she was dying to my brothers and me. My baby brother had a harder time understanding; he was five at the time. My brothers had it the worst. They had actually been mothered and raised by her. But we all cried and begged that there was another way. That it wasn’t true. My mom made us promise that we wouldn’t cry when she went.

I remember when we got the call that my mother was dying. It was my grandparent’s wedding anniversary, but we had to be in Houston to say our goodbyes. The drive there is a blur, but entering the hospital room in which my mother lay on her deathbed is vivid. All of my family members were in the room and my dad was latched onto my mom’s hand. The nurse said that my mom could still hear me so I said my goodbyes and kissed her. It was a little later that my mom was truly gone. “She’s in a better place.” “She’s not suffering anymore.” “What happens now?” There were so many thoughts running through my head as I tried to value my mom’s words and not cry.

I tried not to cry when my brothers got goodbye letters from my mother and I didn’t. I tried not to cry when I realized that the relationship I had always wanted with my mother would never happen. And I tried not to cry when I realized I had no idea who she was, and would probably never know. I was around the age of 10 then.

For the longest time I didn’t cry, and I feel as though it messed me up inside. Because the older I get, the more I realize and remember the bad things that happened to me. I try not to hold on to the bad. But I will always remember.