Cancer Can Suck it....

Here we are ….again. The month of May. I dread this month.  It's the month that my mother died from cancer, eight years ago.  Then there's Mother's Day.  It's just a bad, bad month for me. I take the whole month to just wallow around in my own pity and you know what, I'm not ashamed of it.  I'm usually the funny person, the one guaranteed to make people laugh.  But not during this month.  Maybe you can blame it on the fact that I didn’t mourn like normal people do, I didn’t even really deal with her illness like most people would. I pulled myself together and spent as much time as humanly possible with her, until her last breath. I didn't cry over the fact that I was gonna lose her.  I kept my shit pulled together.  It was almost eerie, HOW put together, until about 6 months after her death.  That's when I crashed.  So now...I take the whole month of May, just to deal.

People wonder where I get my humor and wit from. They wonder where I get my determination and strength from. I wouldn’t say it was inherited from my mom. I would say that it was learned from her. Growing up in our house wasn’t the easiest of things. From the outside looking in, people had no clue. But those that really and truly knew us, well, they knew where the cracks were. My mom was the foundation of that house. Shoot, my mom was the foundation, the bricks, the mortar, and everything else that kept a house up and running. I watched her deal with the impatience and frustration that my dad constantly carried around. I watched her handle tough financial times. I learned from her that laughter can cure a lot of things…..and that hugs and kisses can, too….well that and “monkey blood”, which I now know was iodine but that’s another story. As a child, there was no problem that seemed too big when I had my head in her lap and she ran her fingers through my hair. Maybe that’s why when times are tough, I will dream of that. It’s the only way that I have dreamed of her….running her fingers through my hair.

Thanks to my mother, I now completely understand the phrase, “This hurts me more than it does you.” I can remember thinking as a child, let me slap your butt with a belt ten times and see. But I see it now, I really do. Because when my daughter or son looks up into my eyes with a world of hurt from being punished, it cuts me to the core. Thanks to my mother, I also understand that there are times to be punished for saying or doing something completely wrong, but a better way to go about it is to teach a life lesson. Sometimes we are so quick to react to a situation that the reaction of the parent was far worse than the “crime” our kids committed. Does that make sense? Our reactions to situations with our children leave a lasting impression on them. Believe me, this I know. I learned from my mother how to handle them, unfortunately I tend to react unlike her, but I’m trying Mom, I really am.

I’m not one of those people who have raised their loved one up on a pedestal after they have died. My mom was just wonderful, period. To the outside world (and us, too) she was a lady, all full of class and beauty. At home, she was Momma….who walked around the house in a houserobe and slippers, who made us do housework on Saturdays, took us to church every Wednesday night, Sunday morning and Sunday night, who made us muffins and coffee on Sunday mornings and woke us up singing, “it’s time to get up, it’s time to get up, it’s time to get up this morning” and would proceed to tickling if the song didn’t work, who would play cards with us and talk ugly (but ONLY at the card table), who would cock her head to one side and say “Oh, Jen!” when I said or did something totally inappropriate (which was a lot), who would sit up straight and proud every time me or my sister had a solo in church. She was Momma, who never got involved in our arguments with friends, who always told us that trust was the most important thing between two people….when trust is lost, everything is lost. She was MY Momma ….and for this I am so proud and thankful.

Whoever said that time heals everything, didn't get it right.  It doesn't heal everything.  Nothing will ever heal or fill that void that sits in my heart that so longs to hear my mom say, it's gonna be okay.  Nothing.  And so with that....raise our glass..... here's to the month of May and here's to my Momma.  And...(lift two middle fingers up in the air) here's to Cancer, which can suck it.  (insert "Oh, Jenn" here).