My Mom Got Cancer And It Is The Best Thing That Happened To Me
August 5, 1995. A mid-sized town on the outskirts of … let’s say, Krakozhia. A soccer stadium of the mediocre local team, 30 minutes before the game. A teenager is standing near the entrance, apparently waiting for someone. Maybe, his father. Time passes. 15 minutes to the whistle. He’s still waiting. A slight shadow of worry begins to cover his face. There aren’t any mobile phones in Krakozhia yet. He just has to wait. Game time. The crowd in front of the stadium dissolves, there is almost no one left at the gates. The boy waits for 15 more minutes and slowly starts going home. The gut feeling is bad, his dad is a high-ranked navy officer and he is never late. Never. Something’s wrong. Very wrong.
August, 22, 2002. A large town in the north of … let’s say, Wonderland. A convention hall within a prestigious university, the graduation finale. A young man is mingling in the crowd. Looks like he is surrounded by friends, a young woman near him must be his girlfriend. They all look happy. The guy is holding a diploma in one hand and a glass of beer in another. He looks happy too. However, a slight shadow of worry covers his face from time to time. He takes a mobile phone out of the pocket and starts dialing… Nah, enough! I didn’t dial. Can’t remember even if I was actually holding a beer. Can’t remember one damn thing from that graduation night.
Yes, it was me. My dad didn’t come to the game because that evening my mom collapsed at the workplace, the ambulance took her to the hospital, and he was on his way there right around the time when a slight shadow of worry, whatever the heck that means, began to cover my face near that stadium. I don’t remember any details from those days either. I think she had a surgery the very same day. A few days later — another one. I’d find out years later that each one of those surgeries was a pure miracle. There were many miracles down the stretch but those were the first and the most miraculous ones. A couple of Krakozhian doctors in the dire conditions of the mid-1990s’ Krakozhia saved my mom’s life. Oh, yes, it was cancer. Colon cancer. Stage four which is also the stage of death, mas o menos. Luckily, it was menos. Mas was yet to come…
The timeline is blurry. It is a coping mechanism, obviously. I was sixteen, and it was everything but sweet. She had those two surgeries right away, they cut out the tumor, the metastases, whatever the hell was there, took the colon out — set up the colostoma. For those who do not know, this is when you do number two into a replaceable bag which is literally glued to the side of your body, and they reroute the whole pipery inside. Or something. I was scared enough to know the details and there was no Google back then anyway. Even no Altavista! So yeah, they did that. And then they or some other Krakozhian doctors said that she’d die soon regardless. You can’t survive in Krakozhia of the mid-1990s with this diagnosis, even if you leave the mid-sized town for the capital. Brilliant doctors — check. Drugs , facilities, technologies , and rehabilitation — uncheck. Access to those brilliant doctors without money and/or connections — uncheck too. Even freaking disposable colostomy bags — double uncheck. Cynical approach to patients in this condition [and people in general] — the heaviest check there is.
My dad was a high-ranked navy officer, remember? His superior, a very high-ranked officer, told him soon after the case — Come on, lieutenant colonel, do not worry, you’re only 42, we’ll find you another wife. Fun fact — my parents know each other since the 6th grade, got married, and had my sister born when they were 18. So yes, the admiral was a very hearty man with high ethical standards. Higher than his ranks if it’s even possible. A few years later he suddenly died. From cancer. Yeah, I know.
Back to the doctors. No chance to survive. None. “We saved you but not for long. Sorry.” Then luck struck again. By luck I mean God’s plan for my mom’s life. And death. “And the Lord said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.” I wasn’t with Gideon to hear that but a few thousand years after those words were heard I was in the airport to say goodbye to my mom who flew from Krakozhia to Wonderland for good. For good treatment and slight hopes to survive. The next few years continued to be the blur. I think she had five more surgeries, including returning all the pipes to their proper places, two or three chemo cycles. I stayed in my home town in order to finish high school. Summa cum laude, of course. If anyone doubts.
A year later on the windy night of October, 30th, 1996, my first ever international flight touched down in Wonderland too. Mom wasn’t there to meet me, she had to fly back to Krakozhia for a few months. Dad wasn’t there to accompany me, he had to stay to finish the process of leaving the military, getting the security clearance, bribing people, all the exciting stuff. I was on my own. “All alone am I ever since my goodbye… All alone with just a beat of my heart.” Brenda Lee is still alive if you wondered. God bless her soul.
So there I am, a 17-year-old nerd with little to no social skills, in a foreign country I know almost nothing about, no friends, don’t speak the language, have no clue about anything useful except for some math, Krakozhian, and English. No money either. Oh, and I’m not sure if the person closest to me would live another day. There was only one thing in abundance. Fear. I’d wake up inhaling it, breathing it all day long, and wouldn’t ever release it. I’d go to bed with a single prayer. Dear Lord, keep my mom alive. Guess what. He did. He has been doing it for the last 27 years, actually. Hallelujah! She’s under constant supervision, visits her oncologist a few times a year, undergoes gastro- and colonoscopy every 3–6 months (you can estimate the total number). She’s relatively alright health-wise. In good hands, like they say. But my fear for her life is still there. It never goes away.
Wait. How the heck is it the best thing that happened to you? What’s up with the clickbait title, dude? Haven’t we suffered enough? No, you probably haven’t. My mom surely has. She walked through the valley of the shadow of death and seeing her doing it day in and day out made me who I am and led me to where I am, in all senses. These 27 years (and counting) are a blessing. The blessing, to be exact. In a somewhat painful disguise but definitely the blessing.
Fear. You learn to live with it. You learn to live through it. There’s no other way. The infamous trio of options for any stress situation — fight, flight, or freeze. You have to choose fight each time. You simply have to. And when you do, good things start to pile up. Fast forward to that graduation night in 2002. I’m 23 years old, in a country that became mine and I know a whole lot about it, surrounded by friends, speak the language, have some clue about a bunch of useful things, including computer sciences. Still no money though. Can’t care less about money as long as the closest to me person is alive. She is.
Fear of losing is stronger than desire to gain. Fear moves forward, you try to redeem the time. The borrowed time. Probably, today I wouldn’t feel exactly the same but back then it is exactly how I felt. Like anyone else, I’ve been fighting my own demons too, those that have nothing to do with my mom’s condition. I just have to fight them quicker, I’ve got no time to feel sorry for myself. My mom has never ever felt sorry for herself, so how can I? Fear is probably not the best motivator. I don’t know, maybe it is. However, it surely keeps you in check. Reminds you that you’re not here for long. No one is. Embrace it, fear it, and keep moving. Don’t waste anyone’s time, especially your own.
Care. Have I already mentioned that my mom is awesome? She truly is. I’m not biased at all. This is a fact. She found herself on the death bed at the age of 42. Before and after that she’s been an engineer, radio host, teacher, programmer, bank analyst, a jewelry designer, seller, consultant, and even school mediator. She started alpine skiing when she was 60. Yes, sixty. Got her driving license at 64. Yes, sixty-four. Now she’s 69 and she’s the most young and active person I know.
Whenever I call her, she’s busy. Either literally helping someone at that very moment — giving rides to absolutely random people; donating to someone her furniture or home appliances or clothes or God knows what; taking strangers to clinics, pharmacies, state institutions, schools, or whatever places she can translate for them from Krakozhian to Wonderlandian and back — or planning to help someone. “Sorry, honey, can’t talk right now”. Well, don’t you worry about our communication. When she talks to me, she talks. She also sews, knits, and creates for all the relatives, friends, and again — random people. Made a couple of dozens of a-m-a-z-i-n-g patchwork blankets spending a few weeks of hard work on each and then gave them all away, some to people she barely knows. Why? Because she can.
The best thing about it (besides the mere fact that she’s awesome) — this is contagious. People see it, people notice, people follow the lead. Maybe not everyone, maybe just some. Nevertheless, it spreads the good seeds further and further. The world becomes a better place. Still awful but better. Oh, one more awesome thing about my mom — she’s been living with my dad for 51 years now. He didn’t end up getting a new wife.
Empathy. Once you know your pain, you are keen to see it in others. I don’t know a thing about support groups, I don’t think my mom has ever been to one. She’s been supporting everyone around her without groups though. A few years back she started volunteering for some non-profit organization that helps children and their families who come to Wonderland for treatments, mainly cancer related. Like everything my mom does, it happened naturally. It’s not like she’d planned [to help], looked for [a place to help at], and then acted [on helping]. Nope. Just started doing it. Again, because she could. Somehow I’ve gotten involved too. Contagious, told you.
One time I had to drive to some clinic to pick up a wheelchair for a 6-year boy who had been hospitalized for long months in another clinic. They wanted to let him see the sunlight outside for those rare moments when he was able to sit. So I drove, took the wheelchair, brought it to the hospital, and as I was walking from the parking lot toward the building, I saw my mom (who obviously happened to be there when they needed her) and this boy’s parents coming my way. I instantly knew. There’s no need for chair anymore. This is the moment you carry through the rest of your life. Hopefully, you will never be able to learn what people whose only son has just passed away feel but you do learn tons about yourself. You open the heart to accept pain, grief, despair, denial, agony, and everything else that another human being feels. And you grow out of it. You become different. It is unsettling, disturbing, literally painful, but liberating. Ultimately, it helps you more than the people you feel for. My mom taught me that, without even knowing.
“… faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Mom, I love you.