The journey from fat to fit. Road trip, woo hoo!

I worked all weekend and didn’t really have time to reflect on Mother’s Day.  I’m a mother, and a grandmother, and a daughter, so lots to reflect on.  I’ve spent the last 9 Mother’s Days shedding a few tears for my mom, so I’m reflecting from the daughter point of view today.

My mom died almost 10 years ago.  It’s hard to believe it’s been that long.  I still miss her and I still am prone to bursting into tears at times thinking about it, but not so much in public anymore, so that’s good progress for 10 years, no?  She died three weeks before my fourth child was born.  She battled breast cancer for 10 years and died at the ripe old age of 54.  There’s no justice in this world sometimes.

The last time I was with her was Thanksgiving 1998.  I was living over 2,000 miles away and was eight months pregnant.  I decided to fly to New Orleans for Thanksgiving.  Mom was at home, not doing great, but still keeping up the fight and undergoing treatment.  My sister had at this point cut back to part time work in order to be a part-time caregiver for mom.  She was pretty independent, and dad did what he could, but my sister helped out with showers, hair washing, etc.  Girl stuff.

I arrived the day before Thanksgiving.  My sister picked me up at the airport and said mom’s not doing so hot.  We drove to the house and my mom was a mess.  So frail and having breathing difficulty.  Laying in her darkened bedroom, not wanting the light on.  I went in and she was so glad I was there.  She had lost a lot of weight since the last time I had seen her, that summer, and the first thing she said to me was, “Look how skinny I am, can you believe it?”  And I wonder where I get my body image issues.

Within five minutes, I was driving her to the hospital.  She knew she needed to go, but she wanted to wait for me.  She wanted to “be at home” when I arrived.  10 years later, this is still enough to set my sister off… but more on that dynamic another time.

I took mom to the hospital, spend as much time there as I could.  Brought my two kids to visit and spend time with her.  The next day, Thanksgiving, my new husband arrived in New Orleans, pre-planned for the holiday.  We had been married since April, so 8 months.  10 years later, he is still considered my “new husband” by my family, who had a strong relationship with my ex-husband. 

My dad insisted on carrying on with his traditional Thanksgiving dinner, known in our family as the Dinner of Misfit Toys.  Every Thanksgiving, a strange mix of friends, relatives and virtual strangers show up at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving.  It drove my sister and I nuts, we wanted a nice family affair, but invariably it ended up being a 20-plus person event, complete with anything from an alcoholic gardener my dad had given a job to or an unemployed/quasi-homeless construction worker doing odd jobs for dad.

So, Thanksgiving ‘98, mom is in the hospital, dad is preparing 3 turkeys to feed his band of misfits, I am 8+ months pregnant and DH has just flown the red-eye across country for the “holiday” such as it is.

I spent some of the day at the hospital with her, but I was big and tired and had kids and a husband and really didn’t want to hang out at the hospital all day (I know, selfish much?).  When I told her I was going to go home and help dad, she had a panic attack.  She had fluid in her lungs and was having a lot of trouble breathing, and the anxiety didn’t help things.  She had to be sedated. 

Before the visit turned to shit, though, we talked about the baby girl kicking and squirming in my belly.  She asked about baby names, I told her we had a short list.  DH said, what ideas do you have?  Mom said, name her after me, of course!  We laughed.  Mom made the I-have-cancer face and said, well, you know, I do have cancer, after all, and we all laughed.  My mom liked to play the cancer card.  Hey, there are only so many perks you get with cancer, and if anything my mom was a gal who enjoyed her perks. 

I spent a few more days visiting and then it was time to fly home.  Lots of tears all around, another anxiety attack that resulted in sedation.  Promises of being back soon with the baby to visit.

I flew home and my mom died the next day, while I was 2,000+ miles away.  I was back on the plane flying to New Orleans the next day, against my doctor’s advice.  It’s all kind of fuzzy for me now, honestly, the blur of the visit and then the funeral and then having a baby.  After 10 years, it’s all kind of melded into one event in my mind. 

I do have clear memories of going through my mom’s things the day of her funeral.  I would be flying back to my new home soon, and my sister didn’t want to be left to do it alone.  I think we traumatized my dad.  He probably needed a little more time to adjust, but my sister was adamant that we do it now, do it while I’m in town, don’t leave it for her to do alone. 

Dad was in shock, didn’t tell us not to, so with my mom gone less than a week we virtually eradicated every trace of her from the bedroom that is now dad’s alone.  We were in shock too, we didn’t know what we were doing.  My mom was from Honduras and there had been a big storm or flood or something there recently, so we sent all of her clothing to Honduras for victim relief.  It seemed fitting at the time.

I come from a family of deniers.  My dad and my brother lived in a state of denial up until the moment my mom was dead.  They were certain she’d be okay.  She’d had cancer for 10 years, why would she go and die now?  Hours before her death, my dad was on the phone trying to get her transfered to a cancer research center.  The doctor’s caring for her knew she didn’t have long left, that there was no treatment that was going to help, and my dad is on the phone with me, giving me the address to the new facility where he’s moving her tomorrow.   My mom battled cancer for 10 years, had a slow and steady decline, and yet her death was like a huge shock to the family. 

With the funeral over and the post-death grunt work complete, I flew back to my new home, with my new-ish husband, and had a baby girl three weeks after my mom died.  My new mother-in-law was here with me.  She was a lovely woman, she’s gone now too.  I wouldn’t have made it through without her.   My mom had been at my side for the birth of my two older children in New Orleans, literally at my side.  Now here I was, 10 years later, seemingly a different lifetime, doing this baby thing again at age 34 without my mom.  That’s still my go-to crying jag mantra … I want my mom.

To say that my youngest daughter’s birth was bittersweet would be an understatement, but we welcomed a perfect little girl into the world and named her after her grandmother that she would never know.   At age 9, almost 9-1/2, she pretends that she remembers granny when my older kids talk about their granny.  We have to remind her that she never met that granny.  Oh, yeah, I remember my other one, she says.  Her older siblings call her a dork, I think it’s sweet.

Now I’m rambling into Mother’s Day musings from a mother’s perspective… I’ll save those for another day.

EDIT: To avoid child counting confusion: I have two kids from my first marriage, a step-daughter from DH’s previous relationship and we have a 9-year-old together.  So I have four kids, but only birth’ed three of them myself : )