This is a mantra I repeat to myself often. Sometimes I say it because I’m so mad at her that these are the only words I can mutter to help maintain my sanity, other times I say it simply because it is the honest truth.
She and I have lived under the same roof for the last four years and 22 days. My father suddenly died one afternoon while riding his bike and after the chaos that follows a death I just never returned to my own home, the children migrating with me to the various rooms of my youth where they now are growing up. Living as an adult in your childhood home, especially when a parent is still there is a journey…of something. Just what I’m not exactly sure. There are times when I feel as though I’ve been suspended in some sort of adolescent state where my mother still orders my existence to fit her standards. Yet other times the companionship is the loveliest of balms to the road-rash of my childhood. Whatever the case, there is daily work involved to maintain/build this mishmashed family of ours.
A few weeks ago I heard my mother talking on the phone with a doctor regarding some results of a recent visit. From an earlier discussion with her I understood she had a mass growing on her thyroid. The call was to disclose the details of a biopsy of said mass. I heard her tossing around terms like radiation, surgery, recovery time. Ignoring all the unspoken rules of not eavesdropping on conversations, I perched myself on the stairs outside of her office and waited out the chat. Turns out the radiation words were purely what-ifs to any predicament that might follow a surgery she had already scheduled for a few weeks in the future. Good enough. Surgery on the calendar.
Only something has changed. Our conversations have covered all the what-if’s that might occur under a circumstance such as this. What if it turns out to be malignant? What will follow? What if she doesn’t come home? What are my orders? I have a sibling, we aren’t close. What will happen to everything? These are all topics of recent conversations.
After such a long period of my mother being such a vital being I have seen her in a much different light today. Post-surgery she was so small, much older looking than the spry bird who was joking around with everybody in the pre-surgery room. She looks vulnerable with a drainage tube in her neck and an oxygen mask on her face. And it’s scary. Today I wish my father was still here, that he was her side kick and I was elsewhere waiting for the call to inform us all that she is fine. This isn’t part of the deal we have established over the past 4 years and handful of days. I worry that a door has begun to open and I’m not liking so much what I see on the other side because it’s too scary. But for today, I am here with her and she is my mother and I love her.
