My Mother Bought Me Coffee Yesterday Morning

My mother bought me coffee yesterday morning.

You're probably wondering how that's even possible, given the fact that my mom has been gone two and a half years now, so I'll have to start a little farther back.

When my mom passed I kept nearly everything.

The last time she sat in my car was when I took her to a doctor's appointment a day before she was admitted into the hospital. She had a pink sweater that she used to wear and when she got out of my car that day, she left it hanging over the back of my passenger seat. It's still there. I haven't had the heart to remove it.

Her china hutch is sitting in our house, looking nearly identical to how it was in hers. Eventually we will take out my Grandparent's old things that she had in it and add our own. We're just taking our time.

I have old cards and old notes she wrote me.

I have a "gift card holder" that she gave Ken and I one year on my dresser (yup, that's right, a gift card holder:).

Her old bible.

Photo albums.

A bacon pan (which actually is NOT a bacon pan, but I convinced Ken it was. It's actually a grill pan that my mom used exclusively for cooking bacon. Who would have known it was actually a grill pan?)

Glass corn on the cob holders....we've never used these. In all honesty, who uses fancy glass corn on the cob holders?

A fur coat.

A really old/ugly, white and gold ice chest used to place your bottle of wine in. In fact, I'm pretty sure we have two of these.

We could decorate our house and our neighbors in Christmas decor from my mother's house.

Grace has clothes of my mother's in her closet, and then we have a tub in the garage.

Her old hairbrush. (I couldn't bring myself to toss it or ANYTHING the day we left the hospital. If I could't bring her with me, I was certainly going to bring all of her belongings, and boy did I.)

We cannot park in our garage. We are lucky if we can walk through it. Each time I make it from one end to the other I feel like a survivor of some sort. I'm afraid to let our cat out there out of fear he will get squished by a falling box, or random weird appliance that my mother had.

You probably get the point by now.

After losing my mother, I had a hard time getting rid of ANYTHING. I think this is probably pretty normal for anyone going through the process of grief. Somehow those items (gift card holder and fur coat included) were a part of my mom, and I couldn't let that go quite yet.

One of the many things I kept was a small brown purse my mom would take with her when she didn't want to take something bigger.

She had brought this purse with her to the hospital and in it had packed lipstick, her insurance card, her driver's license, and then a little cash. (P.S. I love my mother for packing lipstick to the hospital.) When we left the hospital after she passed, I took her purse with me. It sits in a drawer in my dresser, and I haven't so much as touched it since I brought it home. It had three dollars in it, and those dollars have sat untouched for the last two and a half years.

I knew they were there, but I could not touch them. They were my mother's. It felt weird to use them, like I was stealing almost.

This last week was kind of rough. Remember my blog post about New Year's Resolutions?

One of my resolutions was to stress less. Well, this last week I failed miserably on that one, and by Friday I was ready for the week to be done, ready to get some perspective and change my attitude, and ready for a nice, sugar filled, calorie laden, cup of coffee.

Unfortunately for me, one of my other resolutions was to budget better (we are doing better in this department, but not as good as I'd like), so I refused to put a cup of coffee on our debit card (we take out spending money in cash each week so it's easier to keep track of, and in addition, things were tight last week, and I didn't want to start out this week on the wrong foot.)

So, I dug my mom's purse out. I felt the lipstick, and looked at my mom's driver's license, and I spent the three dollars that were in it on a much needed cup of coffee.

I felt bad. Like I said, it almost felt like stealing. To be honest, I feel kind of bad blogging about it. I'm a little afraid I'll be judged for using that three dollars on a cup of a coffee, but had my mother been here, I'm pretty sure she would have been the one to buy me that cup of coffee after a bad week...or even after a good week, or for no real reason at all; because mom's do that. Here I go sounding incredibly selfish again, but sometimes I miss that. I miss my mom buying me a cup of coffee or buying my breakfast at work (remember we worked together for years). I miss going shopping with her and splitting a treat with her on the car ride home. I miss that feeling of being taken care of. Now of course that's not the only thing I miss. I miss her MY MOM bottom line, but I also have moments where I miss being a child, who is still being taken care of, even just in small ways, by her mom.






Spending that three dollars did help me gain a little perspective though.

Those three dollars are not my mom.

The fur coat and the glass corn on the cob holders are not my mom.

The boxes upon boxes in our garage are not my mom.

My mom is in my heart (yup, here I go being corny).

My mom is in my memory.

In me.

In my relationship with my daughter.

She is not in a box or an article of clothing.

Those things may remind me of her, but they are not her.

I do not have to keep every shred of her existence.

My mother most definitely existed.

I am living proof of her impact on this world.

I hold her in my memory and in my heart.

I love her now just as much as I did when she was here.

Our relationship still exists.

She is still a part of my life.

I don't need a garage full of boxes to prove that or to remind me of that.

All I need is to look in the mirror,
to remember her,
to talk about her.

This summer I will clean out my garage. It will be hard and I will still keep some articles of clothing. I will still keep the gift card holder (because it still makes me laugh.) I will still keep a lot of things.

But, I won't keep it all.

I don't need to, to keep my mother.

My mother will always be a part of me.

Source: imgfave.com via Misty on Pinterest

The day my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she wasn't officially diagnosed. The official diagnoses wouldn't come until after they did a biopsy of what they thought was the tumor. But we knew right away that it was cancer; the doctors, my mother, me.

After receiving the news from her doctor, my mother called me at school. She waited until school had let out, and then she told me to come home. She didn't tell me why, and she didn't have to.

I knew.

I cleaned my desk and packed my school work into my bag in a matter of seconds.

I drove the free way in silence and record time; the whole time my gut knew what my head and my heart wasn't ready to hear.

When I walked in the front door of my mother's house, she was sitting in her bathrobe on the couch.

"They think I have pancreatic cancer..."

"But you can't. I haven't even had babies yet."

"I know, that was my first thought."

I disappeared into the pillows on the couch and my mom's arms, and we cried. We cried for a long time, and then the rest gets blurry.

Phone calls were made.

My mom called our manager at St. Lukes,

She called friends,

I called my husband.

Do you remember how I explained my freak out over the possibility of hepatitis? I made Ken come home from work then. But the day my mom was diagnosed, I didn't ask him to come home.

I needed to be with my mom,

and then

I needed to be alone.

I sat on her back porch with her for hours.

We didn't eat a thing that day.

At one point we came in from the porch renewed. Working at a hospital had its advantages and they had pulled strings to get my mother in that Friday to perform a procedure on her bile duct (the reason her urine was so dark). Once that was up and running, they could begin treatment. They had set her up with a surgeon to see if the tumor could be removed, and they got her in with the best oncologist they could find.

I remember her quoting her friend Claire: Be ready for the fight of your life Caren.

And we were.

But we were beat before we even had a chance.

And, I knew it.

I knew it deep down in my gut the minute I got the phone call to come home that day.

I left at nine that night, which to be honest is something that haunts me still. My mom slept alone in her bed that night, and I should have stayed with her.

She should have had someone to reach a hand out to and hold that night.

But I had to get home. I had to break down alone in my own room. I had to look up statistics and patron saints and stories of survival (which were few and far between). I had to cry until I couldn't breath, and I had to do it where she couldn't see me.

And then that night, when I couldn't sleep, I had to call her, and I had to hear her voice pick up on the other line. I had to tell her I loved her and hear her tell me she loved me, the whole time knowing deep down, that there would come a night when I couldn't pick up the phone at 11 o'clock at night, just to hear her voice.

I hoped with all of my heart that my mom would beat cancer. I prayed non stop. I asked friends to pray. I tried to think positively. I looked up the patron Saint of miracles (Saint Anthony), I brought my rosary, something I hadn't used in years, to the hospital.

But in the end, none of that really mattered.

My mother's diagnoses is the first time in my life when I have been faced with something I had no control over; my life marked.

Part One

My mother passed away from pancreatic cancer two and a half years ago. I'm pretty sure if you are reading this, then you know me, so you already know this fact:) From time to time, I have well earned "pity me" moments, and I've found that I tend to weave my mom into most of my blog posts. Well, I promise this won't be a pity me moment; however, this is a blog post about my mom, which means it may be sad, or I may get sappy, so be forewarned.

Most likely this story will come in parts. It may take me all week or it may take me all year to finish. We will just have to see.

My mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer the summer I was twenty five. I had just started my first real job as a teacher, and was teaching a four hour a day summer school course. I started on a Monday, and the kids came on the following Tuesday. My first day was memorable. I felt like a fish out of water. I was very sure that anyone seeing me trounce my way through the school could tell this was my first teaching job. It didn't help that on my first day (a staff day), there were multiple meetings being held around the school. I walked into what I thought was the staff meeting I was supposed to attend, only to find out I wasn't in the right room. I had to get up 15 minutes into the meeting and crawl my way out to the door, only to then arrive late for my actual meeting. Once the meeting was through and I made it up to my classroom, class roster in hand, I called my mom.

I remember her answering, the first words out of my mouth being, "30 kids Mom! 30 high school students! That's how many students I have in my summer school class!"

I was terrified,

but she laughed, and I was reassured.

This memory has absolutely nothing to do with my mom's diagnoses; however, I felt free that day. I was starting my first teaching job, something I had waited a while to do. All my years of college had paid off. I was ecstatic and scared to death at the same time. And, I shared all of those feelings with my mom, in fact, I'm pretty sure she felt them too.

The Friday of that week, my mom went to the doctor. She thought she had a UTI.

She took a urine analysis test at he Primary Health by my house. They were able to determine that it wasn't a UTI immediately. Her urine was dark (if this is too much info, I apologize). In fact, it was brown. I didn't know it was that dark until she was in the hospital. Had I known, I would have encouraged her to go sooner than what she did. Because of the color, they were fairy certain she had hepatitis.

I was completely lost in my own world at this time. I didn't have much time to plan for summer school, so I was planning as I went. I spent most of my time at the school that week, or working at St. Lukes.

My sister called that night after my mom talked to the doctor to tell me they thought it was hepatitis-the "bad" kind as she had said.

I bawled.

In fact, I called Ken and made him come home because I was worried.

Then, I called Sharlee and left her an incomprehensible message about my mother possibly having hepatitis.

(I was dramatic to say the least. I have always been a bit hyper sensitive to the idea of losing people. I'm not sure where it comes from. If you are a psychology student, or a psychologist, or just into that sort of thing, feel free to analyze away. When I was in kindergarten, somewhere around the time my parents divorced, I went through this phase where I didn't want to be away from my mom AT ALL! We lived kitty corner from my school, and one day, in the middle of class, I just snuck off and walked home. I very specifically remember knocking on our door, and my mother answering it and looking down at me with her jaw dropped. I held up a bow of mine I had found at school, and told her I came home to show her that I had found it. The weeks following this were painful for me, as I'm sure they were for her. I remember crying my little kindergarten eyes out in class and the teacher telling the other studenst to just "let me cry". It's all very comical now. But, I imagine at the time that I just didn't want to be away from my mother. I had this similar feeling when I moved out for the first time, and the second, and the third:) Or, anytime I went out of town. In fact, any trip out of town was accompanied by me going over to my mom's and crying because I was afraid I might die. I was never afraid of the actual dying part. I was upset by the idea of being away from her.)

Nonetheless, when my melodramatic charade was done,

I called my mom.

I had actually called her multiple times during this process, but wasn't able to get a hold of her. Really this should have been my first clue, that the possible diagnoses wasn't that bad. And it wasn't.

They did think it was hepatitis, but that it was easily treatable. They wanted her to basically quarantine herself until Monday when the full lab report came back.

That night I shopped for my mom. I picked up her favorites: cheese its, and chicken patty sandwiches, coffee and Keebler Elf Graham cookies; and then I dropped her groceries off to her for a weekend in. I hugged her, then left.

Monday came around.

It wasn't hepatitis.

That was good, right? I thought for sure it was something small and treatable.

Cancer had not even occur ed to me.

They scheduled her to come in the following day for a MRI.

My mom arrived her for her MRI at nine the next morning.

I was teaching.

She stood, half way naked, while a nurse conducted the MRI, and then she drove home.

They called her as she walked in the door to her house and asked her to come back in.

She sat in a doctor's office, alone, when the doctor gave her what she thought to be her diagnoses:

Pancreatic Cancer: Stage 3.

It appeared as though the tumor was wrapped around a major artery, but they couldn't be sure.