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What Now?

Rob SaysLeave a comment

flight sky people high

As I write this, it’s Thursday, the day before the viewing for my Mother, which will be Friday. Ah Friday. Lately seems like all of the interesting shit falls on a Friday. Then there will be Saturday. The day that we bury her.

I’m still sort of in shock. I’m still numb. Maybe tomorrow reality will hit me full force in the face. Maybe not. Maybe that will be Saturday. Then again, maybe not. Maybe it will be weeks or months, maybe even years before this really hits me. I don’t really know.

My closest Brother, Ryan, called me today. He lives in Illinois at the moment. He’s been there for quite a few years now. God I miss him. I really wish he was here. He can’t be though. He’s got his own life and his own shit to deal with.

But we talked. Talked for about an hour and a half. It was really good to talk with him. I got to tell him the things that are going on in my life at the moment and he got to tell me the things that are going on in his life. He’s got some really, and I mean REALLY awesome things that are happening to him. I’m so happy for him. I really and truly hope that they work out and come true.

We talked about my Mom. We talked about how we went to car shows with her and my Dad. He mentioned that she was like a Mother to him as well. He’s hurting too. I know it.

My Mom was a “neat lady.” She was. She was neat. She did the best she could and like all of us really, she had to figure things out as she went. She had to wing it. I’ll always love her for that. She meant well.

I’m relieved that she is no longer in pain. I’m glad that she isn’t suffering anymore. I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful that I got to know her the best that I could.

That being said, my Mom was no saint. She wasn’t perfect. In fact, she was rather heavy handed with me as I was growing up. Even right up to the end, that was how she was. Always giving me unsolicited advice. Telling me what I “should” do. What I “ought” to do. What I “needed” to do. Some of that unsolicited advice was priceless. Most of it was worthless.

I guess in her eyes, I never grew up. I was never the Man before her. I was always her son and the little boy who didn’t have it figured out and would never figure it out. Even at my age of 46. Part of me resents her for that.

I know that I’ll miss her terribly. But part of me is relieved that she is gone. For the first time in my life, I feel truly out from under her. I’m sure I mentioned this in a previous post, but I’m saying it again.

I get to be me now. I don’t have to wear a mask around the family anymore. I don’t have to wear a mask around her anymore. I can be who I am, warts and all. I don’t have to face her judgment anymore. I don’t have to hear her “should’s,” “ought to’s,” and “need’s” anymore. I can be me full time around my Dad now. He can be who he really is around me full time now.

I love my Mom and always will, if it wasn’t for her and my Father both, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t exist.

I still resent her though, to some degree. And like I said, I’m relieved that she is gone. I don’t have to put up with her shit anymore.

I mentioned to my Dad the other day why I didn’t come around much ever since I left the nest and got out on my own. I didn’t have to finish what I had started, he finished it for me.

“You didn’t come around much because you didn’t want to hear your Mother’s shit.”

He’s right. Nailed it in one. I’ve always considered my Father perceptive, but I didn’t realize until then, just how perceptive he really is.

I needed to tell him why I didn’t come around so that he didn’t think it was about him. Turns out he knew all along. He was right.

The girlfriend tolerated my Mother and the sparse visits we made to visit her and my Dad. I knew she didn’t really want to be around my Mom. She said to me one night after we had left their house, “You change when you’re around them.”

“What? How do you mean?”

“I don’t know, you become more quiet, more withdrawn, sullen.”

“I do?”

“Yeah you do.”

I never realized I did that until that conversation. But I did. Did it for years. Honestly, I did that my whole life. I tried to show my Mom who I really was when I was much younger and she didn’t want to see it. Couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t see it. Like many things in her world, her life, she only saw what she wanted to see. We all do that to one degree or another. I know I do.

The girlfriend spoke to me the other day, she hopes that my Dad will wait until she gets back from her trip before he starts to remove Mom’s stuff from the house. She wants to help him do it. She wants to hopefully get a better picture of who my Mom as a Mother and a woman was, and she also wants to get to know my Dad better. She actually wants to spend more time around my Father. She likes him. She wants to see what he’s like now that he’s not the caregiver. She wants to see him outside the influence of my Mom. I do too.

My Father and I get to start new chapters now. Chapters without the influence of my Mother. It’ll be good I think.

No, it will be great.

Life is absurd and so is death. But here we are.

There are no rules really, only consequences. Do what you want. Think what you want. Be who you want. Accept the consequences of those choices. Realize for the most part, none of those choices or consequences will kill you.

Set yourself free.

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When Cancer Strikes Close To Home Part 2

Rob Says1 Comment

purple crocus in bloom during daytime

So the 4 to 6 week time line didn’t go as expected. Turns out my Mother had only a few hours left in her life to live.

She died on September 17th at 5:00 pm MST.

She died about 8 hours after I posted my last post.

I’m writing this mostly on Tuesday, the day after. I’m numb and sort of in shock. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. Even though I knew it was coming, I still thought I had more time. It seems unreal. At least I got to see her one last time before she died and I got to tell her that I loved her and that I would be okay after she was gone. Both my Father and me will be okay.

On Tuesday the 18th, I went with my close extended family and my Father to the mortuary to discuss what’s the next step.

My Father decided to bury her instead of cremate her because he needs and wants a final resting place for her. Somewhere he can go and talk to her. I support his decision for him. I’m good with that.

I never realized what a racket the death industry is until Tuesday. Coffins ain’t cheap. A burial plot ain’t cheap. The vault that the coffin goes in ain’t cheap. The headstone ain’t cheap. I’m not entirely sure at the moment, but I believe my Dad is into it about close to $10,000. Apparently that is cheap considering other people have paid more for this “service.”

After we got done at the mortuary, we went for lunch and talked about everything and nothing. We talked about the shit my Mom has said and done over the years. We talked about people we knew well, we talked about people that were acquaintances at best.

All I wanted to do was drink myself into oblivion. I had a few and got a good, and I mean a real good buzz going on and then went home and began to type this up.

It’s the only way right now that I can cope with the thoughts in my head and the silence that is surrounding me.

The girlfriend is in Europe for 3 months. I won’t see her until December. She knows what is going on because we talk for a bit every day. She’s offered to come home early, but I told her to enjoy her trip, there’s nothing that she can do. It won’t bring my Mom back. I miss both of them so dearly. It hurts just thinking about it.

Death is absurd. So is life when you think about it.

On one hand, I miss my Mom so much, and I know that that particular pain hasn’t even really sunk in yet. The viewing will be on Friday the 21st from 6 to 8 pm. The funeral itself will be on Saturday the 22nd and it starts at 10:30 am. I think. Maybe closer to 11. I don’t remember right at this moment.

So on one hand I miss my Mom, and on the other, I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I’m truly free of her. I can truly do what I want and be who I want without her gaze and her judgment. My life feels truly like it is my own. Maybe that makes me a terrible, selfish person, maybe not. Either way, it’s my choice now.

My girlfriend’s family has offered to come up to support me during the funeral, to be there in my girlfriend’s stead. I told them that that wouldn’t be necessary, I’ll be alright.

Maybe they’ll come up, maybe they won’t. Either way, I’m good with it. It’ll be great if they do, it’ll be fine if they don’t. I have no expectations either way.

My Father is 67 years old as I write this. He is a good man. He’s pretty good at being a man too. Some of my earliest “red pilling” came at his hands many years ago.

This will be the first chapter in his life where he is truly calling his own shots and doing whatever he wants to do. He won’t have to feel guilt for not going to the hospital to sit with my Mom. He won’t have to be a caregiver anymore. He can now do whatever he wants to do. I’m happy for him and I’m excited for him as well. He has plans. As he says, and I quote, “I’ve got shit to do.” I look forward to whatever it is that he’s going to do from here on out.

Death and life are absurd. We create all of these expectations and have ideas of what life is truly about and what we think it should be.

The truth is, life just is what it is. You keep on keeping on. It’s punctuated with highs and lows, and in the middle is where you keep on keeping on.

You get to decide what you want to do with your life. Nothing and nobody can truly hold you back except yourself. Not your Mother. Not your Father. Not even society to a large degree. Just you. Your thoughts, your hopes, your expectations. That’s all that is truly holding you back, and that’s all it’s ever been really.

That all being said, the grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side. There are consequences for the choices that you make. You may do things that make your life more incredible than you could have ever possibly imagined. You could fuck things up so bad that there’s no coming back from it too. Remember that. You can choose to do whatever you want, but can’t always escape the consequences of your choices.

Keep on keeping on. Life is what it is. The grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side. You can have anything you want, but you’ll also have to accept the consequences of having whatever it is that you got.

There are no do overs in life. There’s just life. Consider the consequences of the choices you are making or are about to make and then choose accordingly.

Even writing about life and death is absurd. It’s all absurd to one degree or another. In the end there are no rules.

I’ve run out of things to say for now. Now I’m choosing to stop writing and I’m going to drink myself into a stupor. Maybe not my best choice, but it’s what I choose for the moment. I accept the consequences of my choice. Judge me if you want. I don’t care. Your judgment and my own judgment really mean nothing in the long run, and they are both absurd as well.

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When Cancer Strikes Close To Home

Rob Says1 Comment

awareness cancer design pink

It’s been at least a week or more since I’ve updated my blog. It’s been even longer since I’ve updated my e-mail list and my Twitter really.

Here’s what’s been going on recently…

First I’d like to start off at the beginning. This would have been around November or December of 2015.

I was working my job as a reader when my Father called me on a Friday night and told me that he needed to talk to me. I asked him what it was about and he said that he would rather tell it to me to my face than do it over the phone.

I knew something was up and I knew it wasn’t good if that was what he wanted to do. I also knew that my Mother was in the hospital at the time. I believe at the time it was because she had blood clots either in her legs, her lungs, or both.

I tried to get my Dad to just tell me what was going on, but he was having none of it. I would have to wait until the next day to find out what was up.

I couldn’t wait, so I called my Mom on her cell phone. She answered and I asked her what was going on.

That was when she told me that she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. At that time, it had spread to her liver, her colon, and a few other places in her body.

She went in because she thought there was blood clots going on in her lungs or legs, or both, and found out she had cancer instead.

The doctor’s were optimistic. They thought that surgery and chemotherapy would take care of this particular cancer. And in the beginning, they were right.

She had her ovaries removed and had several treatments of chemotherapy over the next few months, so early to mid 2016, and the chemo killed the cancer. All of her test results came back negative. She appeared to be cured.

About 6 to 8 months later she went back for a follow up visit, only to find out the cancer was back.

She then went through another round of chemotherapy, this time a stronger version of chemo. This particular chemo almost killed her. Luckily she was already in the hospital at the time of the treatment, or she would have never made it there. It was touch and go for about two weeks initially. Would her body recover from the chemo or succumb to it?

She recovered, went through a little physical therapy because of how much the chemo had weakened her and then was initially given a choice: go home and let the cancer do its thing and die, or do another round of this particular chemo and have it kill her outright.

There was another option though. She could go back to the original chemo that wasn’t as strong, but it wouldn’t kill her. It would never “cure” her cancer, it would just hold it in limbo. Keep it in check. She would have to get treatments on and off for the rest of her life, but in theory, she could live a full life and possibly die of old age.

She chose that latter option, and that’s what she had been doing from late 2016 until a few weeks ago.

On September 1st of this year, she went back in to the hospital, she was weak and was thinking that something was wrong with either her gall bladder, or that maybe she was having blood clots in her lungs again as it was hard for her to breathe.

The doctors ran all of the usual tests on the usual areas, looking for any of the usual signs and found nothing physically wrong with her.

The only thing that was off was her blood platelets. They weren’t going back up after her last chemo treatment from a couple months ago. In fact her platelets kept going down.

The doctor wanted to check her bone marrow and see what was going on there. In order to do that her blood platelets needed to be over 50 or higher. She was at 50. Apparently if your blood platelets are at 50 or under and you get a puncture, a cut, or a wound, you can bleed to death. You don’t have enough platelets to create clotting.

So they gave her a transfusion of blood platelets and got her numbers up to 75 and were able to do the procedure. They drilled into a spot in her hip bone and extracted some of her bone marrow and sent it off to the lab to see what was going on.

The preliminary results are back and they aren’t good.

Her stem cells in her bones are damaged. They may be damaged beyond repair. If that is the case, there is nothing the doctors can do for her.

Her options will be to either receive blood platelet transfusions a few times a week, but she will never get better, she will still stay sick. Not much of a quality of life there. Or she can come home and get her affairs in order, or she can go to a center and have hospice come and administer morphine to keep her comfortable until the end comes.

My family and I knew that someday something like this would happen. We knew that the cancer itself or something related to the cancer would be what ultimately ended her life.

I know about this latest procedure she had because again, my Father called me, again while I was doing readings on a Friday night. Just this last Friday night. So three days ago as I publish this.

My Father asked the doctor about an approximate time line from the day that the test was ran until the results come back definitively.  As I write this and post this, I haven’t heard the exact and final analysis. So I’m holding out for a miracle there. But I’m not going to delude myself.

Even knowing that cancer in one way or another is what is going to kill my Mother, and I’ve had a couple of years to prepare for that, it still took the wind out of me when my Father gave me that estimated time line.

Four to six weeks. That’s her time left. That’s what she has remaining.

 

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