Chapter Forty-One
LENA - ORANGE, CA
Iwoke up the Saturday morning after returning from San Francisco, harnessed Atticus, and hit the neighborhood streets for a run.
I’d missed several days because of the early meeting times of the conference.
As I ran, I thought of my time with my dad in the City by the Bay.
I pictured him dancing at the gay club, so free, so happy, and so proud to show me his world, and then our heart-to-heart at the inn when I finally got to hear his story from his perspective.
It made me realize that there was a piece of my mom’s story I hadn’t yet explored.
The last journal she’d kept—the one she’d filled during her battle with cancer—I’d never found the strength to read, so I’d let it linger for years.
I would periodically take it out, thinking I was ready to peer inside, but would find it too painful and place it back.
“Teresa, I’m so sorry.” The oncologist looked at my mother, his eyes soft and earnest. “Your pancreatic cancer is inoperable, incurable. We’ll provide treatment to prolong your life as much as possible and keep you comfortable, but this is terminal. I am truly sorry.”
The realization hit me like a knife to the heart.
My mother was going to die. Soon. The news was so devastating that all I could do was grip the counter as if it was the only thing tethering me to the earth.
I wanted to howl and scream. I felt like I would choke as I tried to stifle anything from coming out of my mouth.
My stomach churned, and I felt dizzy. I was overcome with homesickness, not for a place but for the life I’d just had before the diagnosis.
I was going to have to live the rest of my life without my mom in it.
I couldn’t fathom that. I felt completely dislocated, unmoored, drifting out to sea.
What would it be like to be a motherless daughter?
I felt so out of control, emotions flooding me and threatening to take over.
As soon as we left the hospital that day, I requested a leave of absence from my job, and fortunately, Marcus granted it.
I temporarily moved back to New York, securing a short-term rental right near my mom and Larry’s apartment.
What we sadly thought would be a few months turned into a year and a half as my mom held on longer than expected—a blessing and a curse, as it gave me more time with her but meant she was suffering as the cancer slowly killed her.
Kevin was supportive, visiting when he could and patiently waiting for me to come back home to California for short stints to get more clothes and check in on my life then return to New York.
I was there every step of the way for my mom’s medical treatment and helped her see every specialist possible.
Doing something, anything—researching online, making phone calls, organizing her paperwork—made me feel less helpless.
It was the only way I could cope with such momentous news.
But it still didn’t mask the fact that I was losing my mom as she was losing her battle with the disease.
What made it even harder was that she could read me so well.
I could never hide from her. It was like she knew everything that crossed my mind.
My mother's intuition was so strong that I would swear sometimes she was psychic.
It took me years to realize that what I thought was her predicting the future was really her uncanny, deep knowledge of me.
I’d never forget when she said, “Sweetie, this is killing me literally, but it's also killing you emotionally because you can't put your hands inside my body and take out the cancer. Please come to terms with the fact that I'm at peace with this, and just be there with me and stop trying to fight.”
So reluctantly, I did. I thought of the time after I’d taken her to chemo and she was resting in bed and I crawled in next to her. We lay there on our sides, facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes. We said nothing aloud. Our lips never moved, but our eyes said so much.
I love you. I will always love you.
I know.
I wish I could make this better.
I know.
You are my life.
I know.
Please go on loving me after I’m gone.
I will.
Thank you.
Thank you.