Reflections: On Loss & Rebuilding
October 20 was my mom’s birthday. She passed away almost five years ago from stage four cancer about one month after she was diagnosed. She was larger than life. Warm, charismatic, sharp, extroverted, extremely funny, and unwaveringly devoted to her family and three kids. She loved being a grandmother, bringing people together, and having close relationships. She liked the energy of young people. She was young at heart. I miss her a lot.
I often think of my life in two parts: my life up till when my Mom got sick and my life after she passed away. Both parts of intertwined, but I do feel like there are two separate chapters in some ways.
Everything was such a blur and the doctors lamented that it was an incredibly rare and aggressive case. “It’s like a house that is on fire, that is what looks like inside with the tumors,” somebody once described.
I remember asking my Mom if there was anything she wanted, anywhere she wanted to go, or anything we could bring to her to make her happier in those final days. Because I love sweets, I remember thinking, do you just want to eat ice cream bars all day because why not!! She didn’t have a sweet tooth. ;)
And yet she didn’t want any stuff or trips or luxuries or nice meals…None of that stuff mattered. She just wanted to spend the rest of her precious time with her family. We ordered BJ’s pizza to the hospital room and did a family dinner which was one of the final lucid conversations. We had an engagement celebration for my older brother and SIL, which was a huge highlight for my mom.
The lesson I learned from my mom getting sick is that once you are terminal sick, there aren’t a lot of options. No amount of money or planning can change your circumstance.
I learned *how much more is possible* for ourselves if we aren’t terminally sick. What a precious gift it is to have your vitality. Privilege, race, class, access, resources…these all impact if someone truly have options and if their vitality is threatened daily …I am very fortunate to have options and vitality. I try my best to live into an intention to be expansive, brave and in service to others, in this miracle of life, and I hope my mom would be proud.