Ever noticed how sunday evenings it's very easy to get depressed? Funny that until today I hadn't actually realized how common it was...that is, until I read the article on MSN health and fitness about it. For me, right now, I wish I had about a week to do nothing. Just read, knit, listen to music, maybe practice a little, watch some MASH...I wonder when things stop feeling strange. Specific times from my mom's journey stick out as if they happened yesterday, even though it's now been a year and two days I do believe since she was told that she had masses on her ovaries. At the time I thought I'd remember that day forever, and although I remember quite a bit leading up in that day, I don't remember off-hand the actual date. If I dug around in my journal box for my journal from that time I'm sure I'd find out. I remember the time, and that it was a monday. 5:29pm exact. I was working on MacGamut for my Basic Skills class (MacGamut, an ear training program that is just about the death of all first and second year music students...many an hour was spent cursing at the program or if you were me, not cursing but saying URGH again and again when the program insisted that you notate things like B double flat augmented sixth chords...) having listened to the message on the machine from my mom telling me that she had a doctor's appointment and that my dad was going with her so she wasn't sure when they'd be back. I figured that doing MacGamut would at least be easier to concentrate on then a theory assignment. I still consider that moment the moment that I truly became an adult. Oh, sure, I'd had my eighteenth birthday more than a year before, but that was truly when I suddenly grew up and enrolled in the course, rather without choice, called Cancer 101. A course I would never wish on anyone but one that has taught me many things.
A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning the living room so that I could have a distraction free room for my Sunrise class. My mom's birthday cards were still up on the piano top. One from a friend had a really interesting bit taped in. I found it very interesting, and I think it really bears repeating:
What Cancer Cannot Do:
Cancer is so limited.
It cannot cripple love.
It cannot shatter hope.
It cannot carrode faith.
It cannot eat away peace.
It cannot kill friendship.
It cannot shut out memories.
It cannot silence courage.
It cannot invade the soul.
It cannot reduce eternal life.
It cannot quench the spirit.
My mom's journey taught me more than I ever knew possible:
I value my sister and dad a lot more than before (right now I tend to worry a lot when my dad gos out alone or something-fearing car crashes I guess; just not wanting another family member gone. That and fearing he'll have a heart attack)
There are more important things than school and musical achievement.
God truly has a plan, and it will work out-just not the way we necessarily wanted it.
Doctors can be very human. My mom's main cancer doctor from May to her death is one of the most wonderful people I have met.
More people than you can imagine will show their support, if only in a small way. While searching for the card that had that quotation, I found a card sent from our local library!
People listen...and are often surprisingly good at knowing what you need.
Professors, like doctors are also very human, and despite what some think, are truly there to help students. I don't know where I'd have been the past year or so without some extensions, or extra help to clarify things that I missed either when spending time at the hospital or because of mind wandering (reaching out to be there, worrying).
Hospital staff are generally very caring and helpful...but hospitals themselves tend to smell.
It is amazing just how many things a person can do in 54 years, but how many you feel were left undone.
Death is the strangest experience there is.
My mom's hug was the best feeling in the world.
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