Sunday, November 3, 2013

I love you, mom.

My beautiful, loving, funny, caring, amazing mother passed away 9 days ago.

I just feel lost.

She was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer 3 months ago.  She passed away 11 weeks after we got the news.  We were told she had time.  We were told the kind of cancer she had (non-small cell lung cancer - adenocarcinoma) was slow progressing.  We were told there were a litany of treatments she could have.

She hadn't smoked a cigarette in 29 years.  She quit the moment she found out she was pregnant with me.

To spare you the details, the treatments didn't work.  The cancer spread to her brain.  The brain radiation didn't work.  The chemotherapy didn't work.  Her cancer progressed rapidly.  It didn't act the way the doctors expected it to act.  We had no idea.

We didn't know it was killing her so quickly.  We had no clue.  And now I'm left with a ton of woulda, shoulda, couldas.

And a lot of doubts.

My mom and I were so close.  We did stuff together almost every weekend.  Mainly shopping.  We loved to shop.  (I think that was an inherited trait.)  She helped me take care of C after he was born... she helped me take care of myself.  A month after I gave birth, she was diagnosed.  Man, did she love my kid.  She cried the night he was born.  She cried every time I texted her a picture.  Now, he's going to grow up without knowing her. It guts me to think about that.

There's a void.

I miss my mom.