Mom, are you going to be around on Monday? I need to see Shira, she doesn’t live too far from you so I figured I would see you too.
Mom and I have always been very close. Pretty much as close as I can be with my mom short of being creepy. I now had a treatment plan, it is time to tell mom what is going on. The only way I can do that is face-to-face so I make up an excuse and Monday morning I head out on a 5-hour drive. That gave me plenty of time to figure out how the hell I was going to tell her.
She greets me at the door with a big hug and we sit at the dining table. Right away she shows me the list of things for me to fix, look at, etc. in the house! I reach out, touch her arm, look her in the eyes …
Mom, I have a medical thing going on.
She closes her eyes, tilts her head down, and says “Ok, go on.”
I have treatable, and they believe curable, colorectal cancer.
She took a deep breath, looked at me, and said
Ok. Where do we go from here?
I told her the plan. I told her my plan. I have been putting together my finances, will, etc. and told her some of that.
I know in the next couple of days you will wake up wondering the what-ifs that you don’t want to hear, but know that Pearlsky, Ellen (sister), and Inanna will all be fine. Inanna will stay in the house with the girls no matter what and will be financially secure. I am giving Ellen the condo she is living in.
You’re not going anywhere.
Probably not.
I told her how I was documenting all the important stuff for the household in case I was too sick, or whatever. She was thrilled that Norm is my porn-buddy. She got up and came back with a notebook.
When your dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, he put this together. I did not know about it until a few years later.
Dad beat the lung cancer and lived many more years. The notebook was labeled “Things you need to know” and was divided into sections. There is banking information, car information, etc. And one page in the middle that simply said,
You should know how much I have always loved you.
I then started on her list. I changed a light bulb, fixed a phone jack, etc. When we looked at her antique dresser I said that I did not have the right tools with me, but …
I will be back in the fall and fix it.
There was then one other task, and that too, I had to tell her it needed to wait until the fall.
We then went for pizza.
The next morning as I was leaving she assured me she will be up visiting several times this summer.
And I assured her that I will be back in the fall.
