October 17th 2010

October 17th, 2010 is a day that will forever stand in my mind. Perhaps not in date, but in the occurrences of the day. It was sunday, so my dad and I went to church in the morning. I can't remember exactly why I stayed home in the afternoon while he went up to the hospital, but I did. I do remember that I worked on cleaning out the knitting basket by the couch that day. It still felt somewhat disloyal to do so, even though it really had been a shared knitting basket for around ten years. Perhaps it was just something to do to keep my mind off things. I think I watched something on TLC while I did it, perhaps even Untold Stories of the ER. Or it might have been some MASH. Maybe it was a combination of the two. It's really not important now. It was probably around 5 or 5:30 when my dad came home. I could tell before he began to speak that things were not 'right'. I was cooking dinner, cod or salmon fillets and sweet potato French fries. I do remember that it was fish.

Things were not right, because my mom had told my dad that she was 'ready to die'. We went back over right after dinner, and I think my sister showed up too. She really did say her good-byes that night. From the way things were, and my lack of knowledge about how dying really works, I honestly believed that she was going to die during the night that night. I just felt it. I ended up cancelling everything for the next day, and talking and crying over the phone with a friend for probably close to two hours. I fell asleep after 1am with the baby afghan my mom made for me on top of my pillow.

My mom didn't die that night. The next day, we spent all day there, and our minister was there for most of the time as well. It was more than two weeks later that my mom died, but October 17th stands out because it is the day when she truly began to die. Even after the 3 months date, there had been small bits of hope, that perhaps she would improve a little bit and come home for a few weeks. After October 17th there was NO hope of ever seeing her out of the hospital bed.

October 17th to November 5th were the two and a half most difficult weeks of my life...even more challenging then my own two-week hospitalization. As October has been continuing, it has been getting harder and harder to NOT think about everything. In just over two weeks, it will be a year. Sometimes it feels like it's  been only a day, sometimes a lifetime.

All of the cancer trauma has been reinforced today by finding out that the husband of my accompanist, a wonderful trumpet player and teacher (besides just being an all-around great guy) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I don't know what staging or type, and can only pray that it was caught very early and is the less-common type with a better prognosis (like Steve Jobs had). This past year has definitely been the year of cancer deaths in my life, from my mom, to an MYC teacher, to the president of my former youth symphony, to our former computer technician, to Jack Layton, and unfortunately, the great likelihood is that before long, I will hear about the cancer death of the above mentioned person.

My prayers tonight are definitely with my accompanist, her husband and the rest of their family-they have two (or three...) grown sons, also musicians, and several grand-children. NO ONE deserves cancer.

CANCER I HATE YOU!