hospice notice

Today I came home from school for the weekend and saw the Hospice notice on the fridge. It had my mom's doctor on it and the various workers like a spiritual worker and a social worker. You know, everything feels real at moments like that, but most of the time it feels surreal. I still can't wrap my mind around all of this. I can't even begin to comprehend that my mom is going to be gone soon. I don't understand, and I feel so frustrated and I'm just so sad all the time.

I finally broke and told another professor about my mom. I need to talk to the Dean so they can do the thing when people are sick or have some issue and they send out a notice to the professors so they know the situation. That way, I won't have to sit and stare at an email for forever and feel guilty about sending it. I feel so terrible whenever I give in and let people know how bad things are.  I'm perfectly justified in feeling the way I do, but since it feels surreal, I don't believe it's actually happening, and I just can't even explain it.

Tonight I'm sad because the Hospice notice made it Real again. I'm really scared that in a couple of years I won't remember her voice, or I won't be able to see her face clearly in my mind. In a couple years I'll be looking at these last pictures my Aunt has been taking of her and it'll all seem so faraway. Or will it? What happens? How do people do this? How do people cope with this? I'm not coping well.

I'm so upset over small things. Like, when I was a kid I remember friends saying, "Oh yeah, my grandma/grandpa died before I was born, so I didn't even know them." And it wasn't important to them and I just think that if I ever have kids, they won't know about their grandmother and as much as I tell them about her, she'll just be an abstract idea. These are just little things I can't change, but I'm just so upset thinking that in a couple years some of this will be smoothed over, because I just feel so raw right now. I don't want to forget things. I'm scared of forgetting things. I'm just so sad and so scared.

I mostly talk to myself nowadays, instead of posting my thoughts here. I don't speak aloud or anything, I just talk while I'm brushing my teeth or washing my face. I talk myself into the shower and I talk myself out. But all of the talk is the same and all of it could have gone here, but I kept it to myself instead, because if I write it then it's permanent and it's There, and I can't get rid of it anymore.

I'm losing my mom to cancer.

And everyday I am sad.

I chose to stop posting in this blog for a very long time, or at least it seemed like a long time, but really it's only been since May. A year ago is when all of this started, and a year goes by so fast, and a year can change everything.

While I was in Japan, every other week I received some sort of Bad News. Then there was a Big Emergency, and all of this weighed on me, and I decided to come back at the end of the semester. Thinking back on it now, I'm very glad I did come back, even though there were times when I was unsure.

I guess none of this was Real to me. It wasn't Real because everyone was hopeful, or at least appeared that way before I left for Japan. Nothing was Real until I came back and I saw my mom losing weight, her hair, her speech. Even still, it didn't hit me until I found out about the bone cancer.

I don't know when it was that I first saw the effects of bone cancer on the internet. Lots of people my age and younger think that the effects of illness on the body is interesting, or cool, so they'll post things like 'the effects of bone cancer' and I remember seeing a messed up picture of a skull and feeling indifferent. But I now that I know things are happening to a person I love very dearly, it's taken that to a whole new level. It's not just some picture anymore. It's Real.

And now that it's Real, I get angry. I'm not angry at the universe or God or whatever, like people expect people like me to be. I feel like I'm supposed to blame everything and anyone and some higher power, but mostly I'm just angry because my mom will never see grandchildren, or the grand canyon, or the Northern Lights, and it's Not Fair.

I'm angry that people romanticize suffering and pain. I'm angry that books like The Fault in Our Stars exist. Cancer isn't quirky. It isn't a cute trait. It's not romantic. It's not beautiful. It's not something you use as a plot device. Cancer is sitting on your floor and crying into a pillow so your suitemates don't hear. Cancer is going on vacation and then going to the ER instead of shopping. Cancer is feeling everything that makes up your entire world shift. Cancer is Sad.

I'm angry at my own weakness and my inability to do anything. All I can do is go to school every day, and when I can't manage that I feel like I'm abusing my sadness, or that I'm letting it win. I got straight A's last semester, but my personal life is a mess. But it's not a mess, because I have great friends and I get up every day and go to work and school and come back and clean pet cages and socialize and smile, and it all looks amazing and great, and then someone will say something and I'll freeze because for some reason it makes me Sad and then I push it away only for it to come back later when I am alone.

I was in my drawing class about three weeks ago and a song came on over pandora and for some reason, my mood plummeted and all I could think about was being Sad and I left. And then I was guilty and angry at myself for not being able to hold it in, and that I had been doing so well and I had managed to nearly make it through the entire semester without missing a class.

When we drove back from our vacation today, my mom apologized to us for "messing up the vacation" and no matter what we said she still blamed herself. Then she told us to keep going on vacation as a family and to continue family traditions and she started crying because she was implying she wouldn't be there. The thought of her not being with us invokes a pain I can't even being to explain. There just aren't words.

I remember when I was a little kid and I was asking about God and my mom told me that God loved us so much that we can't even begin to imagine. I remember being surprised because how could a love greater than the one I felt for my family exist. How could a large, enveloping love exist outside of the one I already felt? I've had friends tell me that being religious makes it easier, because we know that they really aren't gone, but in truth, it doesn't make it easier, because when she's gone, I'm going to want a hug, or to hear her voice, or go to places and eat at silly small riverside restaurants together, and I won't be able to do that.

People say that high school or college are the best years of your life, and I don't believe that, but it's even harder to believe that I'll ever have 'the best years of my life' when my mom won't be around to share them with me. It's Not Fair.

Every day I am sad, and every day I grieve.